


Seven Deadly Sins

by Tallburntbacon



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Awkward Romance, Death, Drunk Driving, Emotional Manipulation, Falling In Love, Good versus Evil, Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Multi, Murder, Murderers, Mystery, Original Character Death(s), Original Fiction, Original Universe, Past Abuse, Police, References to Depression, Seven Deadly Sins, Seven Heavenly Virtues, Slow Romance, Superpowers, Villains, Villains to Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 11:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 39
Words: 40,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30121752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallburntbacon/pseuds/Tallburntbacon
Summary: When seven unlucky teenagers are hanging out in the woods to work on a school, they find a mysterious box that seems to have something inside of it.Follow the as they discover how live with the quick changes to their lives.
Relationships: Original Character(s)/Original Character(s), Original Female Character & Original Male Character, Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character





	1. The beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this when i was twelve, so it's really bad.  
> I'm not writing any more of this.  
> I also have not reread this too well so there's a lot of misspellings and grammar mistakes and missing words.   
> Enjoy.

Some stories start with a challenge, some start with a joke but not this one dear reader, no, this one starts… with a murder.

“You tested me father, you shouldn’t have tested me! You knew this father! You knew when I reached my limit chaos would come! You knew this! You knew this wasn’t the way you wanted to go AND YET! YOU STILL FUCKING DID IT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”  
Her hands were dripping crimson, splashing the floor every now and then. Her white dress was now tainted with the blood of her dear departed relative. The fire twisted the room, distorting it like a kaleidoscope. She threw in her dirty, once white gloves and stomped of dragging behind her the mutilated body of her father.  
“What the FUCK HAVE YOU DONE!?!?!” screamed a boy wearing a red jacket but with the blood everywhere you wouldn’t know if that was its true colour or not.  
When the job was done she had called for her six friends to help the clean-up, one of which was the screeching boy.  
“IT HAD TO BE DONE! NOW, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND HELP ME BRING THE BODY IN THIS FUCKING HOUSE!” the murderer’s chef’s knife dropped to the floor with crash, leaving her hands free for body removal.  
A girl wearing a similar white dress giggled at her friend’s despair. She truly was a frightening girl. You could see, in the way she stood, that at any second she could explode and attack her friends. The group banded together around the corpse and all at once the reality set.  
“WE’RE FUCKING ASSETS OF YOUR CRIME! THIS COULD RUIN MY LIFE!” yelped a black haired lass.  
“WELL!” the murderer took a deep breath, “Well, then you shouldn’t have helped me and now your only choice is to hide this body with me.”  
A loud BANG echoed out from within the house and causing the seven to whip their heads towards the noise. Each person shook in their place, with the exception of the giggling girl who calmly stated,  
“It seems we have another person to deal with.”

This is a tale of morality and misdeed. A story of sins and virtues. An adventure based on tragedy ending in anarchy. This is a woeful journey. And yet, it continued in a peaceful, quiet, calming forest. A group of seven friends, completely unaware of the days to come, were relaxing between the trees.  
“Why are you so scared of these innocent creatures?” said Salem Underwood while gazing at a lady bird laying on the ground. Salem was a very outdoorsy girl, she loved camping and exploring in the large forest near her house. Her eyes were a deep brown that would stare at your soul if you got her mad. Her hair was light brown, shoulder length and straight and her skin hazel coloured. She was wearing a dark green t-shirt with a black scarf and black ripped skinny jeans also bright red trainers that she has owned for at least three years.  
“Because they aren’t innocent creatures, they are beings from the deepest depths of hell. Have you seen those huge spiders? Have you been to Australia, basically a nightmare realm filled with bugs and arachnids and… yeah.” Said Finn O’Kelly putting his hands in his hoodie’s pockets. Finn never really liked bugs, if he found one in his house he’d leave it alone unless it annoyed him. He had short, messy, black hair that if you looked at, at the right angle, with the natural sunlight looked grey and grey eyes that were almost always drooping from tiredness with bags under them from lack of sleep. He was wearing a black hoodie with the occasional bright blue as an accent colour and dark blue jeans. He had fair, pale skin that was blinding in the sunlight.  
The two were in the middle of the Shire-Grove woods working on a school project with their five friends. Like every Thursday, the seven friends would hang out either in the forest or in one of their houses but today each of them had to work on a biology homework.  
There was Charity Turner, she was watching a butterfly flutter around the trees. Charity liked animals although bugs were never her favourite choice to hang out with. She had two huskies at home, her dogs would’ve been brought with her if they didn’t try to eat every bug they came across. Her eyes were a shining indigo with round, dark purple glasses and her hair was light blonde, long and straight with blue tips that she changes the colour of every month or so. She was wearing a light pink peplum shirt and a magenta skirt that went down to her knees as well as light grey socks with black pumps.  
Lying in the grass and watching the sky was Ellis Sweeney. Ellis enjoyed just sitting outside relaxing however he did get annoyed by bees and wasps. The feel and soft sound of the plants helped him compose himself. His hair was dark brown, shoulder length and wavy that was rarely brushed and normally tied up and his eyes were a luscious dark green that were so full of life. He was wearing just a grey jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms but he also wore a silver stud earing.  
With her Canon camera, Gwen Raleigh took pictures of the multiple different bugs she saw. Gwen loved photography and happily did the job of getting pictures for her project, she was excited to use her new camera. She was glad Ally was able to make it, the past two days she had been sick with a cold and been off school. Her skin was a warm, peachy white. Her ginger, curly hair stuck out in all directions, blinding her for seconds at a time because of the light wind and her eyes were a light blue glistening with excitement. She was wearing a fluffy, green jumper and light blue denim jeans as well as light brown army boots.  
Watching Gwen was Ally Eris, not really in the mood of constant chatter. Ally liked being alone however she didn’t fancy being lonely, she loved her friends despite rarely talking when they’re hanging out. She liked reading and that fact is how she became friends with Gwen leading to becoming friends with the rest of the group. Her skin was a gingerbread colour that shone with the light through the tree’s leaves. Her hair was dark brown, curly and up in a tight ponytail and her eyes were a rich brown like teakwood that looked to be full of wisdom. She was wearing a grey jacket over her black shirt and black jeans.  
Oliver Winters was trying to climb a big tree only to fall flat on his face every so often. Oliver liked climbing. His parents owned a luxury resort on the side of town, where he and his friends hang out sometimes and there is a climbing wall there that he has completed so many times. He loved exercising in general like running or cycling. He had cream coloured skin and short, blonde and FUCKING FLOOFY hair. His eyes were a dazzling amber. He wore a light red shirt with short sleeves and light blue shorts.  
After about 20 minutes of doing their own thing Oliver shouted out alerting all of the friends,  
“Hey! There’s a weird box over here!”  
He had stopped trying to climb the tree and had walked over to the empty space near Ellis. Everyone eventually got there absolutely muddled by what he meant.  
“Look at this” said Oliver dumbfounded.  
He was looking at a dark blue, wooden box. There were gold etchings on the side forming weird designs and the words cardinal sins in the same gold font. The box looked to be old and weathered however was holding up. It smelled damp despite there being no rain. He picked it up and it was as light as a feather. He shook it and there was a bang as if something was inside.  
“Should I open it?” Oliver asked staring at the box with an eager look in his eyes.  
Gwen answered, “Sure, whatever, it’s just a box.”  
With those words Ollie opened the box and immediately afterwards released unto the floor. The box made a loud CRASH deafening the seven for a second but was otherwise it was unaffected.  
“What the fuck Ollie, are you ok? What was that?” Salem hurried over to Oliver who was clutching his hands as if they were in pain.  
“I don’t know. I just… it just burned me,” Replied Oliver, “I opened it and it hurt.”  
They all looked over at the box laying wide open.  
“Let’s get you-.” Before Salem could continue pure black smoke shot out of the box.  
No one had the chance to move before they were engulfed in the smoke, it filling up their lungs. They all screamed as one by one they fell to the ground clutching their chests. In a second it was all over and the group came to slowly. The box was gone and no one had any words as none of them had any clue what just happened.  
Salem spoke up, “Any bloody clue what that-.”  
Once again she was interrupted by a hatch slamming open that was previously hidden in the multitude if grass.  
“Ok. That’s weird. Is anyone going to do something or are you guys just going to stare at it with that dumb look on your faces,” this time Salem got through her sentence, she ground her teeth.  
Gwen took out her camera and started taking pictures of the scene in front of them. The rest of them got rid of their startled looks and stood up to investigate. Salem walked over to the open hatch and saw a ladder leading down.  
“What are we doing here? Are we going down or what?” Gwen asked.  
Before anyone could answer, Salem had already started climbing making the decision for everyone else. They were going down there.  
The ladder wasn’t very long however most of the group had never really had to climb down a ladder in a confined tunnel not knowing where it leads to before so they all went down slowly. Some were faster such as Oliver as like previously stated he liked climbing or Salem in her excitement for exploration. In the end they all made it down safely and found themselves in a huge lounge. The room was very retro, on one side of the room was a sitting area with a huge blue sofa and fluffy rug of matching colour. There was a big monitor where the couch was facing however there was no remote instead there was a board covered in buttons and switches below it. On the other side of the room was a kitchen area with a fridge, counters and a kitchen island with empty orange bowls on it. The counters were light green on top and bright purple down the side. Looking at it was like an explosion of colours in your eyes. There was a silver plaque with the words Wilkinson bunker on the kitchen islands side. Overall the strange place had a homey feeling to it despite the group never being there before and its weird, vibrant colours. Each person walked over to a different area.  
Salem walked over to the sofa having gone down from her excitement high. Finn walked over to the control board confused on what it was, taking out his phone just to hold it. Charity walked over to the cupboards and opened them to find sweets. She immediately tried to eat them and would have if not stopped by Oliver who followed her. Ellis stood in disgust of the design of the weird underground bunker they had just found. Gwen was taking pictures of every little thing, enjoying the room. Ally was just confused about what the hell was going on as she bit her nails.  
“Where are we? What is this place?”  
Before anyone could answer Ally’s question Salem jumped towards a door in between the split of the kitchen and lounge excited shouting as she did,  
“There’s another hallway full of rooms!”  
Everyone walked over to her and were about to explore until Ellis spoke up,  
“Wait should we even be here? Like, that control thing over there looks quite sophisticated. It looks like some weird recording device. This is obviously some one’s place.”  
There were some mumbles throughout the group in agreement.  
“Yeah but it hasn’t even been cleaned it looks like no one’s been here since the 70’s. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt if we explored.” Explained Salem eager to get going.  
“Fine but if I hear anyone coming I’m blaming you.” Gave in Ellis.  
Every room was explored. Some like Salem went alone but others like Ally and Gwen went together. In the end they had mapped out the entire place. The hallway had 4 doors on each side and one at the very end.  
The first door on the left turned out to be a bathroom with at least 10 showers. The water surprisingly still worked and reminded them of the stream off in the forest not too far from the bunker. Old, discontinued brands of soap were placed all around in the showers.  
The second door on the left was an army style bedroom with 10 beds all made. They seemed very uncomfortable. Oliver tried to lie in one but immediately got up not liking the stiff pillows and from the possibility of bedbugs. There were boxes under each bed with different names on them filled with belongings.  
The third door on the left was a closet full of clothes of all sizes and of all styles. An army style uniform was what filled it most. Gwen found an entire box filled with doll clothes, she elected to ignore purely from the fear of it being for something… dirty.  
The forth door was a study filled with 4 ornate wooden desks and storage boxes filled with files stacked on top of each other. There was an old, rotten, half-eaten apple on one that Charity picked up using a paper towel and threw in the bin.  
The first door on the right was full of surveillance cameras of the bunkers countless rooms and the forest above. Finn poked and prodded at it but couldn’t get in to the system without some key card he assumed was held by the bunker’s owner.  
The second door was a storage room filled with boxes of weird items and a catalogue for everything that was put in and taken out. One box had toppled over and all the papers inside it were all over the floor. Charity cleaned it up, a bit messily, despite Ellis saying not to touch it.  
The third door was a gigantic library filled with extensive knowledge. There were manuals for the items in the bunker. There were fiction books. There were diaries and information books. The sight made Ally smile but she didn’t voice her happiness.  
The forth door was a gym filled with many exercise machines that were very outdated. Oliver tried out some of the machines only to find them broke. Needless to say he was very disappointed.  
Finally, at the door at the end of the hall all of the friends were present to explore. Inside was a planning room complete with a huge table in the middle covered by a map of the city with pins pinned on it. There was a blackboard with writing that was mostly smudged. All that you could make out were the words cardinal sins, heavenly virtues and seven seals that were circled.  
“Well this place is… insane.” concluded Finn putting his phone in his pocket.  
“It’s like a secret services bunker y’know. There’s hidden cameras and weird investigations.” chimed in Charity.  
“Should we be here then; we could get arrested.” said Ellis worriedly.  
“Nonsense, it’s abandoned see” Salem responded while gesturing around the planning room, “They were doing something here at some point probably but not anymore, okay. This place was left to rot.”  
“Exactly, what were they doing, they didn’t clean it up, what if something bad happened to the people doing it and we’re next.” fired back Ellis.  
“You’re bumming me out Ellis, how ‘bout we just find out what the hell that smoke was and then we’ll leave, yea?” said Gwen making everyone freeze.  
They had forgotten about that in the excitement and fear of searching the bunker. Ellis settled for that and grumbled in agreement. The search began around the planning room. No one wanted to look through the library books as I’m sure you can understand. If you’ve just found a secret bunker with an unknown history you’re hardly going to want to just sit down and read except maybe Ally but she didn’t want to be alone in this unknown place.  
Salem looked towards the blackboards and bit the inside of her cheek,  
“Hey Oliver, on the box you found didn’t it say cardinal sins?”  
“Yea, it did why?” asked Ollie.  
“Well it’s definitely connected to what they were doing here, it’s on the black board with heavenly virtues and seven seals.” Salem snorted at those words, clicking her tongue as she did, which caused everyone to give her weird looks, “What? It’s just not something you’d think the Government would be thinking about.”  
“Maybe it’s not the Government look.” Ally said holding up a diary with the words S.O.C.A executive director, James S. Stewart, journal. She opened it and started reading, “13-Mar-1953, The society of cataclysmic anomalies has officially released agents into the field after 100 years of searching we think we have found the 3 catalyst chests. The a-.”  
Ally was interrupted by Salem asking,  
“The 50’s? But that’s impossible I thought it was a stretch thinking they had tech like that in the 70’s but in the 50’s. No way.”  
“Well” Ally flipped to the last journal entry, “He stopped writing on April 5th 1976 so maybe they updated throughout the years.”  
This time it was Finn who spoke up, “Yea but even then they didn’t have cameras like the ones in the surveillance room and that big board in the lounge is something I don’t think any old person could have y’know. Like it seems like a government thing-y. It tracks people for goodness sake and god knows what else it does that I couldn’t figure out.”  
“Well maybe if you two would let her talk she would tell us” said Gwen annoyance obvious in her tone, “Please continue Ally.”  
“The agents have residence in the Wilkinson bunker named after John Wilkinson the head engineer who designed the cloaking machine, the Jekyll bunker named after the greatest agent our field has ever produced and the Halloran bunker named after the founder of the S.O.C.A. The bunkers created in 1936 finally have use. I will be joining them in the Wilkinson bunker however I am not fit to search. We have multiple possible places of the catalyst chests all of which reside in the town of Redborough. The residents have not noticed the small changes in terrain. The technology Wilkinson designed has worked and transported us to the town at the three different coordinates we stated. I hope to hear from you soon Director, signed J.S.S. That’s the first entry there are countless more.”  
After she finished the group needed to take a second to process the information. Eventually they all got confused looks on their faces and started bombarding Ally with questions.  
“What’s the society of cataclysmic anomalies?”  
“What are the catalyst chests?”  
“What did he mean by cloaking technology?”  
“What did he mean by transported us?”  
“There’s three bunkers?”  
“GUYS ENOUGH!” shouted Gwen, “I’m sure Ally doesn’t know any more than we do.”  
Everyone went quiet. Ally stopped her nail biting and looked at Gwen with a thankful look.  
“Okay” Salem decided to take control of the situation, “Lets collect the facts we do know.”  
After a second of silence Oliver spoke up,  
“Well that box I found is definitely one of those catalyst chest things and whether we like It or not we are part of this.”  
The group silently agreed not knowing what to do next. A phone alarm buzzed out of nowhere making all in the group jump.  
“Oh sorry guys, that’s my alarm I have to go home now.” Salem proclaimed, “how about we meet up again tomorrow we can continue with the project and at least try to figure out all of this.”  
Ellis replied, “Yeah how about 4:30 and y’know let’s not tell anyone about this and we can try hide the hatch maybe… just cover it with leaves, hope no one finds it.”  
“Whoa, Whoa, whoa we can’t just leave now we just found some… secret society’s bunker and you’re going to go home right when our questions are being answered!” Ally spoke up baffled that they were so calm about this.  
“Well what else should we do if we stay later I know for sure my parents would start an integration until they milk me dry of all my answers.” Finn pointed out.  
“One ew gross don’t say that metaphor when taking about your parents” Ally ignored the quiet ‘dirty-minded’ she got from Finn and continued “and two aren’t you curious. Don’t you have an ache inside you searching for the answers. A desire to research everything this place has to offer.”  
“No Ally. Yes, I want to understand it but I also am tired and want to go to sleep. I don’t have ‘an ache’ inside of me. C’mon let’s go home and meet back up tomorrow unless you want to stay here by yourself.” Responded Salem agitation prevalent in her tone.  
Ally was silent for a second,  
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry let’s go home. I’d rather go home.”  
With those words Salem started towards the ladder followed by the others, Ally and Gwen lagging behind. They all went home only able to think of the secrets they found that weren’t supposed to be known.


	2. Salem's cottage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salem's home

Salem Underwood was walking home. Her house was the closest to the woods, Salem loved her house. It was a small cottage surrounded by trees. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom, a small kitchen and living room. The garden outside was beautiful, it was full of red roses, white daffodils and purple carnations. Her mother loved the flowers her father grew. Many bittersweet memories are connected to those flowers. Salem and her mother lying in them looking at the clouds. Her and her parents planting them under the blazing sun. The thought made Salem frown.  
She stood outside the blue wooden door that now reminds her of the box her and her friends found. Should she tell her dad? Ellis said not to tell anyone but she told her dad everything. She won’t for now until they figured out what to do with the information or goes too far. She opened the door expecting her dad to still be at work, he worked really hard to support Salem. It was hard for him to find a job after the car crash, he was fired from his past job because he worked as a builder and now, not being able to walk, he couldn’t work. He now worked at a desk job for some insurance company. It’s not his favourite thing to do, Salem could tell that much but they need the money to help them. After the funeral their family started losing money as her dad couldn’t work for a while. Salem loved her dad and everything he did for her.  
She walked inside, locking the door behind her accidentally grinding her teeth together. She walked over to the kitchen and found a note on the fridge saying ‘AT work till 7, dinner in fridge’. Salem sighed. She really missed being able to hang out with her dad. He would go to work, she would go to school, she would come home and wait and when her dad came home he was too tired to talk. She couldn’t blame him though. She also missed her mother even though the accident was 5 months ago Salem just couldn’t get over her death.  
The house was clean as Salem walked through it. Cleaning was one of the things that her mother loved so Salem wanted to keep her memory intact and made sure the house was always clean. Everything in the way her mother liked it. She decided to distract herself with homework which failed spectacularly. She couldn’t stop the thoughts form forming in her head.  
What was that box?  
Did the smoke do anything or are we just idiots who apparently faint randomly?  
Should we even be looking for the answers because curiosity did kill the cat but then again satisfaction brought it back?  
She cursed herself for getting distracted and spent the rest of the day trying to do her school work.


	3. Finn's house

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn's home

Finn O’Kelly was walking home while listening to his music. Finn didn’t have the best relationship with his parents. They didn’t like him constantly being on his play station and iPad. Finn loved coding and always practised on his iPad but his parents refuse to see how that’s useful in life. Finn’s house was a detached house in a suburban community. Everyone knew everyone and he hated that. Everyone knew he only went outside for school except on the occasion he hangs out with his friends. Everyone knew he had no plans for the future because his parents told everyone because everyone is friends here. Finn hated that. He’d rather live in a house like Salem’s, away from humanity and with good Wi-Fi. His two siblings, Megan and Daniel, have his parents so proud just because they have different hobbies like violin or horse riding.  
Finn opened the door and tried to rush upstairs to his room but he failed. His parents called him down.  
“So, what were you and your little friends doing?” asked his father, Jimmy, while sitting on his chair in the living room.  
“Nothing.” Replied Finn.  
“Oh honey, you realise how suspicious that sounds. We just want to know you’re not doing drugs.” Said his mother, Julia, sitting on the sofa with a book in hand.  
Finn couldn’t help roll his eyes at his mother’s clearly fake concern.  
“I’m not doing drugs mum, okay. I’m going to my room.”  
“Alright honey but you know we worry about you,” responded his mum.  
“You don’t worry about me; you worry about me causing trouble for you.” Muttered Finn under his breath not loud enough for his parents to hear while he was walking upstairs.  
“Remember! It’s your turn to do the dishes today!” shouted up his father.  
“It’s always my turn.” Finn continued to mutter, clearly annoyed.  
Finn spent the rest of the day on his play station.


	4. Charity's home

Charity was walking home. Charity was living with her mum, her step dad and her step sister. Her mum has been with him for two years and yet she still can’t find a connection between her and her ‘dad’. He says he wants to be friends but doesn’t even try. Her real dad never existed to her. It’s always been just her and her mum and that was all she needed. She did want her mum to be happy but... the guy she married, Mr Williams, is a twat.  
Charity opened the door to see her step sister Audrey Williams sitting on the table eating cereal and texting on her phone.  
“Mum and dad are away with friends and’ll be home by like 7,” mentioned Audrey without even looking up from her phone.  
“ok” was all Charity said before rushing outside to her huskies.  
Despite Mr Williams wanting her to feel like part of the family he never really gave her much attention. Audrey had the bigger room. She got the most attention and it didn’t help that she didn’t like Charity. But she was fine with that, she didn’t like Audrey either. She’s never actually had a whole conversation with her probably because she was always on her phone. Outside she played with the family dogs. There was Marshmallow, who they called Mallie, she is white with a cream tint on her paws. Then there is Ruby she is a beautiful ginger colour that reminds Charity of fire. She loved her dogs, technically they’re the family dogs but the only other one who looked after them was Audrey. They were originally Audrey’s and still are in a way but when Charity joined she started helping look after them. She brought them outside and walked them.


	5. Ellis's farm

Ellis was taking the bus home, staring outside. He lived in a rural town with only one school. His dad’s thought it would be better for Ellis if he went to school in the city because Ellis despite what it seemed had a high IQ. The school around his house had really rowdy kids in it, he wouldn’t be able to learn. It was a bit of a pain taking the long bus ride to school every day but it’s worth it for a good education or at least as good as his school could get.  
Ellis, unlike the rest of his family, doesn’t like getting down and dirty with animals. He lived on a farm so his dad’s and two older brothers all work with animals and crops. It just wasn’t Ellis’s thing except the crops, Ellis did love gardening but not the heavy duty kind more like the pretty flowers kind. Sometimes however, he would be forced into the weirdest chores. His friends all say they had to wash the dishes or hoover the house but Ellis doesn’t tell them that he had to see a sheep put down for its meat. His family were really weird compared to others even if they’re of the farm. They are so obnoxious. His friends haven’t been to his house; they normally meet up at Salem’s as it’s beautiful or Oliver’s since his families rich and has the biggest house. Ellis’s house is the by far the weirdest, Gwen’s house is close being covered in her weird drawings but in the end doesn’t beat going to your chores and having to risk getting toppled by a cow. Ellis spent the rest of the day helping on the farm and then immediately fell asleep after he plopped onto his bed. In the end Ellis loves his family despite how different they are.


	6. Gwen's flat

Gwen was walking home. Her and her parents lived in a flat with three bedrooms, so it was bigger than they needed. Her parents were teachers at Redborough college not too far from their house. Her ma taught home economics and her da taught English. Her da, John, would always correct her grammar when speaking. Her ma, Mallory, loved cooking extravagant meals with little budget and Gwen loved it. She has tried so many different cultures of food. Gwen was the opposite of a picky eater; you put something that smells good in front of her and she’ll eat it. Gwen’s room was always clean; she had loads of different collectibles from books to figures to stuffed animals. She loved posing them and taking pictures.  
Gwen also liked drawing. It wasn’t something she would make a job of but she enjoyed it and was moderately good at it. She had some of her best pictures up around her house, her parents loved them. Gwen was tired of doing schoolwork for the day so she spent the rest of it joking around with her parents and watching a movie.


	7. Oliver's mansion

Oliver was being driven home. He didn’t live to far from the city but his house is at the very edge of it. He met up with his chauffeur at the edge of the forest, he had planned it for the project however plans changed. He was a bit late but it’d be fine. The chauffeur drove him home like normal. His house is huge. His parents, as previously mentioned, owned a luxury resort that was right beside Oliver’s house. His friends would sometimes come over to his house to mess around. His family was very rich. His mother, Lana Winters, was a renowned Lawyer and his father, Charlie Winters, was a smart business man. Not only that but they own the resort and get income from that. Oliver didn’t know what he would do when he was older but he knew he wanted to do something physical like maybe the Olympics. He loved his house. He had his own rock climbing place. His little sister, Anais, was always running around the house just having a good time and the two would play chases often.  
Oliver was left of outside his house and opened the grand door. Inside he could hear his 4-year-old sister running around. He went to greet her,  
“Hello Anais, how are you today?”  
“Ollie! Ollie’s home! C’mon let’s go play dolls.” Screamed his sister through excited giggles.  
“No. Not now I have to finish this school project I’m working on” he replied.  
Anais pouted at him.  
“How about we do that later huh.” He said not wanting to see his sister sad.  
“Okay!” squealed his sister already running of to play elsewhere.   
Oliver laughed to himself and walked up the grand stair case to his room. He spent the rest of his day working on school work and playing with his sister.


	8. Ally's residence

Ally was walking home. Her house was a terraced house in the middle of one of the busiest streets in RedBorough. At the end of the street was the secondary school she went to and beside Ally’s house was the local Tesco’s. Ally lived with her mum and dad. They are a standard nuclear family. There is nothing special about them and especially nothing special about Ally. Her entire personality consisted of reading. She has no skills, no aspirations, no talents. Her only hope for her life is to not end up like her brother.   
Albert, her brother, was what her parents would say is a ‘disgrace to the family’. Ally loved her brother no matter what he did but considering that he started out just like her no aspirations or talents their parents don’t have high hopes for her. She believes that if her parents maybe hadn’t been so hard on him he mightn’t have drove while drunk. They drove him to it. They discovered his problems underage drinking, toxic friends and instead of trying to help just punished him for it. But still Ally could understand her parents, Albert was very difficult. She knew no matter what they said they felt sorry and guilty for albert. All of that is in the past however he died 3 years ago and Ally’s parents have hope for her. A little too much hope in Ally’s opinion.   
Ally unlocked her door and walked in. Her parents were arguing in the kitchen so that meant Ally was able to sneak upstairs to her room. She found the family cat, Gerald, curled up on her bed. He was a grey, fat, fluffy cat. He was very loving and she had so many fond nights just lying with him on her sofa. Ally spent the rest of her day watching Netflix with her cat.


	9. Cameras

After a stressful day of the group waiting to get through school to explore the bunker they finally were back in the forest. Although some did have to sneak out to go like Finn who should be studying.  
“Okay, let’s go.” spoke up Salem beside the bunker opening which miraculously wasn’t found but I guess that makes sense when they had been exploring this forest since they met and hadn’t noticed it, it’s a very big forest.   
They all walked over to the hatch and went down one by one excited to explore more. Ally couldn’t wait to read all the books in the library, a bit hesitant this time to go off about it with Gwen. Once back inside they instantly went to work. Salem went to the planning room and read through the executive director’s diary. Finn tried to figure out the big technological box in the lounge. Charity had brought some snacks to put in the kitchen and was currently cleaning out the cupboards and fridge. Ellis was searching up the places the pins on the map were and googling the S.O.C.A. Gwen was helping Ally look through the books in the library for something that could help explain everything. Oliver was searching through the rest of the bunker for clues. After about an hour of this they all met up and talked about what they found.  
“Okay, so, I was reading this book and from what I could tell it was some secret society made to search for the 3 catalyst boxes and these boxes each have a connection to the cardinal sins, the heavenly virtues and the seven seals of the apocalypse… Ellis you were googling it could you tell the class what you found.” Said Salem starting of the conversation.  
“The cardinal sins are apparently another name for the seven deadly sins y’know them lust, pride and so on. The heavenly virtues are basically the opposite sort of. It’s virtues like hope, faith so on. And the seven seals are the seven seals of the apocalypse basically saying once all these sealed are open the apocalypse is going to happen.” Explained Ellis.  
There was a minute of awkward silence where people processed the information.  
“So what does that have to do with the boxes? Did we release the seven deadly sins?” asked Charity worriedly.  
“No, from what I read the society didn’t know exactly what was in the boxes but it wasn’t an actual physical representation of the things.” Salem said, “Finn what did the box do?”  
“I don’t know. I never thought I’d say this but I have no idea what that tech does. It’s so old yet so advanced and it doesn’t make sense. I feel like it defies the rules of time and space” Finn fumed.  
“Well me and Ally did find an instruction book for it… you drama queen.” Chimed in Gwen.  
“WHAT! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Finn fumed even more.  
“Well we had other things to look at.” Said Gwen smugly looking at Finn’s pouty face, “Anyway, we found some books explaining the bunker a bit more. There was a book that sort of explained the smoke. It said the smoke encased the sins like it held their essence or something so when we let it out it tried to escape but we stopped it.”  
“Yeah but the smoke knocked us out and disappeared to god knows where? What was that about?” spoke up Ellis.  
“It said ‘because the sins essence is too much for the human body to handle it starts leaking out and spreading around them.’” Gwen answered.  
“That doesn’t answer my question.”  
“I don’t know everything okay! Let’s just assume we couldn’t take ‘the essence’ of the sins and fainted.”  
“Yeah but what was that quote about what did it mean by ‘leaking out’ will that happen to us.”  
“I don’t know!”  
“STOP ARGUING!” screamed Salem effectively quieting Gwen and Ellis, “Ok, good, we obviously don’t have all the answers and that’s going to happen so how about instead of fighting over it we just search for more pieces of the puzzle. Yea.”  
A series of agreeing mumbles spread throughout the group.  
“Let’s start with that box. Grab the instruction book and… and Oliver what are you doing.” Started Salem.  
She was looking at Oliver who was making a scrunched up face.  
“Nothing I just felt like I had to sneeze please continue.”  
“Alright fine, Finn lets figure this box out.” Continued Salem.  
She started walking to the door ignoring Finn telling her ‘It’s not a box it’s advanced technology’.  
Finn read through the book making an array of weird faces the entire time. When he finished his face was what could only be seen as bewilderment.   
“Ok, so, it says there’s multiple things it does but the main thing is some teleportation of the bunker thing. So you put in the coordinates and push some buttons, type in the code and it teleports. It also has tv in case you’re wondering and it controls the tech in the base and it holds the recordings of the surveillance tapes.” Said Finn.  
“Ok so we get onto this thing and there’ll be videos off this place. Right.” Salem said to which Finn answered yes, “Ok so let’s get on it.”  
“Yeah but we need the key code.” Acknowledged Finn.  
“Oh,” chimed in Oliver, “When searching the bedroom, I did find some old belongings and there were some card things that look very official maybe they’re connected.”  
Oliver went to retrieve the cards and came back with two laminated key cards. Finn took them and stepped over to the box. He typed in the code that each card held and was granted access to the board. He clicked onto the surveillance file and opened a video titled 14-Mar-1953 lounge.  
The video showed the lounge full of 4 workers in army style outfits and a guy in a suit just relaxing.  
“Is she ok with this.” Asked one of the men in a uniform to another.  
“Yeah well she said as long as I visit her on holidays. She knows how important this job is.” The other man responded.   
“It must be hard with the baby… Have you gotten a letter yet?”  
“No Harry, I haven’t. What about you? How’s Caroline.”  
“Oh she’s good. She sent me a letter the other day, she wrote that Paul got into that school he wanted so.”  
“You must be a proud papa.”  
“Yes Jerry, I am the proudest papa in the world.”  
“Don’t be a drama king c’mon you-.”  
Finn turned off that recording and started searching for something more useful to their predicament. He looked for about 5 minutes until finding a briefing video made by the executive director. He turned it on. The video quality was terrible and the colour was dull, something you would expect from the 50’s. It opened on what could only be assumed to be the executive director sitting on the sofa looking off to something at the side of the camera.   
“Okay. Is it on- oh okay.” He turned to look at the camera, “If you are watching this you are now an agent of the society of cataclysmic anomalies, Catalyst chest branch. Welcome. I am here to help explain to you your job. Okay. Let’s start with what we do. We have been searching for the catalyst chests for 100’s of years and we have finally found them, or at least the town they’re in. It is your job to find these boxes and bring them to their respective bunker for safe keeping until our scientists can bring them to a remote location for testing. There are few rules but they are important,  
Don’t leave the bunker without recording it in the bunker book  
When taking a book from the library make sure to write in the library book that you have  
Lights out is 22:00 and you get out of bed at 08:00  
And last but not least, the most important rule if the boxes are found do not, I repeat DO NOT open the box. We believe the boxes hold incredible power. Opening the box is considered treason and you will be brought to a high security prison. Anyway on that jolly note, we have concluded or introductory video for new agents please remember to keep your key card on you at all times for conformation.”  
The video turned off and everyone just stared at it with some questions answered and some new questions to think about.  
“Okay, so we opened the box. Did we unleash this power? Did we get it ourselves? Like, what’s going on here.” Remarked Gwen.  
“What happened to this place. The box was literally right above it so how didn’t they find it. Why is it deserted.” Inquired Oliver.  
“Well we should gather all the clues and do some detective work. OH! Let’s get the blackboard and write out a timeline like the police do.” Said Salem excitedly already rushing to the planning room soon followed by everyone else.  
“Okay this place was made to find the catalyst chests which are boxes that contain great power and should never be opened. And we opened one.” Salem wrote on the blackboard in chalk as she spoke, “This bunker can teleport and there were several workers here at one point and they started in the 50’s but something happened and now they have been deserted. Okay that’s… that leaves us with many questions. Let’s continue what we were doing before.”  
The group dispersed and went back to what they were doing with the difference of Charity now helping search the planning room and Oliver helping in the library. 

Chapter:9 insanity   
They only spent 30 minutes this time out of fear of having to go home soon.  
“Guys I think I found out what happened to this place.” Salem started.  
With those words everyone perked up.  
“I read the journal book thing and the executive director said something about the boxes holding destructive power when any of their agents went near the sins box after they found it here. It only appeared when they had seven people around it. He wrote saying they were gonna try and use seven agents to pick up the box and bring it in the bunker. That’s why it’s here and such but that’s the last entry so something happened between then.”  
“What date was the last entry?” asked Finn getting hyped.   
“Eh hang on.” She flipped through the book, “The 5th of April 1976.”  
“C’mon, I’m going to look for that day’s surveillance.”   
“Wouldn’t that just be the last recording?” asked Charity.  
“No the surveillance has been recording this entire time. It has an amazing amount of memory, it’s quite an amazing machine especially for the 50’s” Said Finn gushing over the technology as he walked to the control box excited to use it again.   
He turned it on and searched for April 5th 1976 tapes. He found what he found for every day. Multiple different tapes for the different rooms. He opened the video of the lounge and fast forwarded until he saw something. At around 3:00pm Finn saw something and played it normally.  
An agent in the army style uniform walked into the busy Lounge looking agravated. He turned to the executive director who noticed him and started talking,  
“Harry. Have you completed your task where are the others? What happened to the box?”  
The man, Harry, didn’t answer he just looked at the executive director with rage.   
He screamed, “FUCK YOU! YOU SENT US TO A DEATH TRAP!”  
The executive director flinched back confused, “What are you talking about? What happened with the box?”  
“Everyone’s dead.” Whispered Harry while slowly putting his head in his hands, “Everyone was killed. Your STUPID plan didn’t work! The box it… we opened it. I don’t even know what happened just… there was smoke we all fainted, we woke up. Jerry, he… he was very upset he went insane James. He… I Don’t know how he did it everyone started choking. They died. Jerry killed them. I got away he… he just fell to the ground.”  
Harry didn’t get to continue as the murderer, Jerry burst in through the door. He didn’t look happy, he looked pissed. Dirt covered his clothes and blood soaked through his shirt as it dripped down from a deep wound on his forehead. He was staring daggers at Harry but then he noticed the executive director standing there shaking from fear. He immediately started choking one hand went to his neck while the other reached out Harry who didn’t even know what to do. He fell to the floor, Dead. Harry was terrified everyone else in the bunker ran to the lounge towards the sound of Harry’s screams. However, once they all gathered they too all fell to the ground dead. Jerry moved his attention to Harry and just gazed at him.   
“Do you realise what we did harry?”  
Harry just shook his head, his mouth gaping open in his dismay.  
“We are the sins. Don’t you get it we released them and now we are them Harry we’ve made a mistake we need to put them back!”  
Jerry was getting more upset by the second. Harry subconsciously started walking backwards which didn’t go unnoticed by Jerry. Harry started choking. He thought of his family while he died wondering what the hell brought Jerry too this. Jerry smirked. He walked over to the kitchen and picked up the sharpest, largest and most reflective knife he could find. He plunged it into his chest and dropped down to the floor smiling blissfully at himself through the knife. He lay on the kitchen island waiting his death smiling.  
“You’re returned. You’re back. The box is sealed.” he mumbled to himself until he gave his final breath.  
Finn sped up the recording when absolutely nothing happened until 5 hours later someone came in.  
A man in a suit holding his key card that said director. Behind him was a team of people holding countless different tools. One of those people was holding empty body bags. The director gave the order to,  
“Clean this up! Put down this entire operation!”   
He put his head in his hands. After that, all that really happened was the clean-up of the events prior and from that day on the bunker was abandoned.  
Finn turned off the recording and looked at everyone. Only Salem spoke up,  
“Well, fuck.”


	10. Freak out

“Do you think that’s going to happen to us?” It was Ally this time who spoke however it was barely audible only loud enough for everyone to just hear it.  
“No. Of course it won’t. Right. That happened right after they opened the box and it’s been a day for us.” Gwen said more so trying to convince herself than the others.  
“It’s fine guys. We aren’t gonna murder each other and anyways I’m more concerned on how he murdered them what was that about.” Salem continued if a bit spooked from the sight of murder, “c’mon let’s go back to the black board.”  
Everyone walked back to the planning room a bit hesitant and sick after seeing that. Their trust in each other had definitely decreased at the idea that one of them might kill the others. Ellis kept glancing at Oliver deciding to keep an eye on him as he had been at the very centre of the smoke blast. Gwen kept close to Ally, a bit queasy after watching people die. Salem was rushing ahead of the others wanting to hastily finish this investigation. Charity was also looking at Oliver but in worry not suspicion. She didn’t want to think he would do that, surely the position of a person when the box was opened wouldn’t affect someone’s sanity plus he seems to still be the joyful, carefree and handsome Oliver. Okay, the smoke probably wouldn’t affect his looks but his face was still held its innocent look. Charity realised she was staring and her face went completely red immediately she looked forward towards the planning room. Finn wasn’t really there. Physically, yes. Mentally, no. His mind was wondering in the empty abyss of his mind. So many thoughts were going through his head.   
‘What will happen to us? Maybe I could live here, y’know get out of my parent’s house. One could only dream.’ He chuckled at the thought of escaping his parents ranting. That got him a weird look from Ellis.  
‘Probably shouldn’t laugh out loud at nothing after everyone is suspicious of one of us being insane. I mean I’m not insane but I do get distracted so easily but that’s not insanity. What could you describe insanity as then? Didn’t someone say it was trying the same thing over and over and over again until…uh expecting a different outcome. Who said that, where did I hear that? Probably some weird video from YouTube. I’m sure I don’t watch it so much I could remember it if I did. Who am I kidding. I shouldn’t lie to myself I watch it all the time. Maybe it’s cause as mum would say ‘I have a selective memory’. That’s bullshit mum and you know that.’  
He didn’t leave that safe world he created in his head until they got to the planning room were Salem went to the blackboard.   
“Ok so, what did we learn?” asked Salem.  
“We released the sins when that guy put them in by killing himself. And he said he was the sins so apparently we’re the sins.” Started Ellis.  
“Well first off his name is Jerry. Secondly he was probably delusional maybe the smoke affected him differently, maybe he had an illness beforehand that caused him to kill his friends.” Challenged Finn.  
“No it has to be connected to the box and the sins right he started choking those people out of nowhere maybe we have superpowers.”  
“That’s stupid none of us went insane. Sure he might’ve gotten powers from that box but maybe he destroyed it or it died with him. Plus as you can clearly see we still haven’t gone insane.”  
“No he said it was back he said the box was resealed and we opened it and saw that.” Spoke up Gwen.  
“Can you all stop arguing.” Said Salem but she was ignored.  
“Look I’m not saying that he didn’t re seal the box but those powers we definitely don’t have anything like that. And the insanity we definitely, as far as I can tell, aren’t insane” Countered Finn.  
“How would you know have you even tried to use powers?” argued Ellis.  
“No of course I haven’t. That’s stupid and what would superpowers even have to do with the box I thought it was religious why would he be able to choke people ok. Maybe the footage was tampered or something.”  
“Oh my god! Why are you so dense? Why would they tamper with it?”  
“I don’t know! I’m just trying to keep our options open.”  
“It’s a box for the seven deadly sins who knows what they could do ok-.”  
Ellis was interrupted by Salem shouting,  
“SHUT UP!”  
As she screamed Ellis and Finn fell to the floor covering their ears. Finn landed right on his butt making an ‘oof’ sound as he did. Ellis was on his knees that most certainly had bruises forming now. Everyone stared at Salem, Gwen and Finn with fear but Ellis with Solace. Salem herself looked terrified and confused. The two boys removed their hands from their ears only to see blood leaking from them.  
“What the fuck Salem,” muttered Gwen.  
“I guess that answers the question of whether we have powers.” Joked Ellis trying to lighten the mood but ultimately failing.  
“Yeah but all she did was hurt our ears with her voice.” Retorted Finn wary of Salem.  
“We were the ones arguing and we were the only ones hurt c’mon Salem back me up here,” he looked towards Salem who still had that terrified look on her face, “Oh hey, calm down Salem it’s fine.”  
His words didn’t help Salem as she stood still, her breathing raspy and her shoulders slumped thinking about the video.  
“Hey Salem I’m sure everything’s fine right” assured Charity not enjoying seeing her friend so distraught.  
“You saw that guy he killed those people okay we don’t know anything about this!” Responded Salem her eyes getting glassy.  
“Salem everything’s fine.” It was Oliver who talked this time, “calm down.”  
While Oliver spoke Salem’s eyes started to droop until she was caught by Gwen before falling to the floor asleep.  
“OH MY GOD! I KILLED HER!” screamed Ollie jumping up and down.  
“No you didn’t she’s just asleep. Not dead ok.” Those words from Gwen calmed down Oliver but he was still confused.  
“Does that mean I have these powers too?” asked Ollie.  
“You don’t seem very concerned.” Ellis said.  
“Well yeah all I did was put her to sleep and in my opinion sleep is awesome.”  
Gwen started moving Salem’s body to the sofa in the lounge followed by everyone else in the group. The room didn’t feel as homely anymore knowing only 50 years ago there was a massacre there.  
“Ok so you two have powers and so do we… possibly. Said powers came from the box of sins we opened and we know that this has happened before but that time someone went insane.” Said Gwen taking charge with Salem out cold despite her visibly shaking.  
“W-what do we do?” asked Ally stuttering her words still trying to keep her composure.  
“We come up with theories. Try and figure out what to do.” Replied Gwen, “Let’s just spread out and continue searching the books. Ally if you don’t want to be alone you can come back with me to the library.”  
Everyone could tell she just wanted the group separated, a bit wary after seeing that guy kill his friends. Gwen started walking away followed by Ally and Ellis, who wanted to read the different journals of the agents and stay away from Salem’s limp form. Finn decided to sort out the boards surveillance for use in the future. He was a bit slower having used a lot of his energy just thinking about the situation at hand. Oliver sat with Salem and Charity trying to gain their composure over the things they just saw. Charity kept glancing over at the kitchen island knowing that’s where the man died. She couldn’t help but think that man probably had a family and friends that he killed.   
Oliver saw the look on her face, “Hey Charity, don’t worry I’m sure everything will turn out fine. We’ll not hurt each other.”  
Charity looked at him, a smile slowly gaining its way on her face. She giggled solemnly.   
“Thanks Ollie. I needed that.”  
They continued in silence just watching either Salem or each other.


	11. Home time

Once everyone was collected back in the lounge, Salem had woken back up and was told about Oliver causing her to fall asleep so they started telling their ideas.  
“Okay, so I was reading that Jerry guy’s journal and apparently he was having problems with mental health before opening the box so the chances of us going insane, I think, are slim.” Started Ellis giving Salem a reassuring look.  
Salem breathed a sigh of relief at his words earning a sympathetic look from Gwen.   
“Okay so I was rereading the books we found and remember the ‘because the sins essence is too much for the human body to take it starts leaking out and spreading around them.’ Yeah I think that’s connected to the powers somehow right?” continued Gwen.  
Salem nodded along with her words and Oliver was fidgeting with his fingers, always having to be moving.  
“Do you think we all have powers I mean we were all there with the box.” Questioned Salem.  
“Probably, we just haven’t found it yet.” Said Finn, “Maybe it’s to do with the cardinal sins y’know sloth or envy or wrath. Or not, I don’t know.”  
“maybe they’re connected. Maybe we have their powers but for now I have to go home and think about what the fuck is happening.” Said Gwen looking at the time on her phone. Her brain could only take so much mind blows in a day, she needed to go home and think.  
“Okay, sure, fine… maybe you could try and see if you have any powers maybe try something connected to the sins obviously not sloth that’s Oliver or wrath I think for Salem.” Said Ellis fully prepared and excited at the prospect of having superpowers.   
“How do you know that?” questioned Finn.  
“Intuition… I guess. I mean who else could it be? Greed, Pride, Lust?” Ellis laughed at the idea of it being lust.  
“Alright how do you know all the sins hmm? And what’s so funny?” again questioned Finn.  
“It’s nothing, I just… know all the sins. It’s a very interesting topic. I’ve read some books about them.” Replied Ellis choosing to ignore Finn’s quiet comment about him having weird hobbies afterwards.  
“Tomorrow’s Saturday so we’ll have more time to decipher this so we’ll talk more then.” Salem said.  
“That’s a no can do I have to… My parents and I are having dinner at the resort with their friends.” Explained Oliver.   
“Yeah I can’t come either I have some family event. We have some cousins from America who’re coming to see us.” Exclaimed Finn looking disinterested at the idea of his cousins.  
“Alright it’ll be me, Salem, Gwen, Charity-.” Ellis was interrupted.  
“Actually I have to babysit my baby cousin so y’know can’t come sorry. But I will try to see if I have powers Ellis.”  
Ellis looked towards Charity, “It’s fine. So it’s just gonna be me, Salem, Gwen and Ally then.”  
A Series of yeses rang throughout the group.  
“OK let’s go home now. I am… My brain is fried after today. The things we saw today don’t leave this bunker okay.” Said Ellis with a serious look on his face that caused the group to nod furiously and walk out the door. The group dispersed and walked home.   
Gwen walked with Ally until they had to split. Ally had always found comfort in Gwen’s presence and especially now with everything going on. Ellis’s brain was on overdrive on the bus home. He didn’t exactly loose his suspicions of everyone else but they have calmed down. He would definitely have to watch Salem tomorrow. Excitement filled his body while thinking about their powers. He didn’t necessarily like that Salem could possibly murder them without even lifting a finger but she wouldn’t do that so it’s fine, for now. Salem was thinking the exact same thing. She didn’t like it. AT ALL. She hurt her friends without even meaning to who knows what else she could do. Walking home, she faltered. Oliver offered Charity a ride home, not wanting her to be alone. He would’ve asked the others but there was only room for two in the backseat and he wouldn’t want to put is friend in the uncomfortable situation of sitting upfront by themselves. Plus, he wanted some time to talk with Charity. Charity gratefully accepted it. The 15 minutes they were in the car together felt like heaven compared to the horror show they saw in the bunker. Finn was listening to his music on his way home. His taste in music was all over the place, whatever he was into at the time he added to his playlist so sometimes he would find a song that a couple months ago he would’ve loved but now not so much. There was some panic at the disco, the entire Dear Evan Hansen playlist, some Disney songs, a lot of my chemical romance and the rare lady gaga song. The distraction was a god send because that is exactly what he needed after today. Nothing made sense to him anymore, he was questioning his beliefs. He always thought that magic doesn’t exist the closest thing to it was science but science couldn’t explain this. At his house he would have to research this more.


	12. Saturday's troubles

The next day Oliver woke up in his bedroom and got ready for the day ahead. He had woken up at 7:00am to prepare and then go to his rugby team practice for school, which end at 9:00 so by then he was driven and ready for anything the world threw at him. He knew his parents were having dinner with their friends while he would be with said friend’s children. Apparently their names were Daniel and Sammy and they were twins. Excitement isn’t exactly what you would call the feelings he had. He wanted to investigate the so called powers he has. He didn’t know exactly how to do it but he did know he would have to practice on someone. Research on the sin of sloth was what he considered to be his best bet. He knew it was basically laziness and that was not what Oliver was about. Oliver was always so hyper; he didn’t understand how he got sloth. His power included putting people to sleep. He did it Salem by telling her to calm down maybe he just tells people to sleep. He could practice on his little sister; it wouldn’t be abnormal if she fell asleep but he didn’t know if there were any side effects to it. Salem seemed fine though. He decided to risk it. Oliver loved his sister and didn’t want anything to happen to him but he knew Salem was fine. What’s the worst that could happen?   
He went down to the living room where his sister was playing with her dolls. He walked up to her,  
“Hey, Anais… so what are you doing?”  
She looked up at him with pure joy in her face, her smile always made him happy.  
“I’m playing dolls you want to join brother?” she squealed.  
“Oh calm down.”   
The moment Oliver said those words his sister’s eyes started to droop and she climbed up onto the sofa and dozed off. Oliver sat down beside her and watched in astonishment.   
Well he definitely had powers but was that it. Can he just people to sleep. What else did sloth do? Maybe he can make people lazy. He would just have to wait and see. Let it come naturally like the sleeping power did. Anais didn’t seem harmed. It looked to just be a normal nap that you could shake someone out of. And that he did, Oliver shook his sister and she woke up.  
Oliver spent the day either looking up the sins or climbing trees in his backyard, waiting for the dinner. At 4:30 his parents came to him in fancy dress and told him it was time to go. He went to the resort with his parents, his sister having stayed at home with a nanny. He was wearing a light red t-shirt, a black hoodie and black jeans. Unlike his parents he didn’t care about dressing up for the evening and at least they were fine with that. Oliver did meet some people who were children of his parent’s friends who forced them to wear fancy dress. That seemed uncomfortable as hell.   
They were waiting for about 10 minutes in the Winter’s resort lounge until the Evergreens, the family friend’s name, appeared. The sons, Daniel and Sammy were twins though they didn’t look identical but they definitely looked like brothers. They had a deep brown colour of hair and light brown for their skin. Their eyes were a rich brown and were looking him up and down like students would the new kid. They too were wearing casual clothes, similar jumpers and jeans. The parents greeted each other and started walking to the restaurant leaving the teens to do whatever as long as it’s in the resort.  
“So, hi I’m Oliver.” He introduced himself.  
“Hi Oliver I’m Danny and this is Sammy.”   
There was an awkward silence until Danny spoke up again,  
“So you live here any fun things to do?”  
“Yeah do you like climbing.”  
They both nodded  
“Well then follow me.”  
Oliver brought them to the climbing wall in the resort. There were multiple different walls most with someone already on it. Some even had lines but since Oliver asked for his own there’s a wall at the end that’s private and mostly for him. It was quite tall, roughly 50 feet. It wasn’t the tallest thing Oliver’s ever climbed but it was still a fun challenge. He walked over to it and unlatched the harness.  
“Who wants to go first?”   
“Are you qualified to do this. I mean should we get one of the workers.” Asked Sammy fumbling with his hands, his gaze darting between the wall, Oliver and his brother.  
“Oh it’s fine I’ve done this countless times. I know what I’m doing.” Said Oliver readying the harness, “So who’s going first?”  
After a little bit of bickering the twins decided Sammy could go first and he stepped forward. Oliver harnessed him in and let him start. He did pretty well but half way up he stopped out. His hands were shaking and his breaths were shallow and fast.  
“Hey what’s up with him?” asked Oliver.  
“He has a fear of heights. He said it would be fine. He said he could do it. Don’t worry he’ll get over it.” Responded Danny with a worry filled glint in his eyes.  
He shouted up to his brother,   
“Hey! If you want to come down just jump of Sam!”  
All Sammy did was shake his head and scrunch up his face in fear.  
“Hey Sammy!” called up Ollie, “Just let go of the grip and you’ll come down slowly!”  
Sammy still didn’t let go. He tried to look down but that just scared him more and now he was holding on to the wall as if it was a life or death situation.  
“Hey Sam! It’s fine! Hey Oliver is there any way you can bring him down?”  
“Yeah but he has to let go,” answered Ollie feeling a bit guilty for letting him climb up there with his fear, “Hey Sam! It’s okay! Just let it go! Calm down!”  
Oliver hadn’t released what he was saying until it came out of his mouth. Sam started losing consciousness and he panicked.  
“Danny he’s falling. He’ll probably come down slowly but he might hit his head on the way down.”  
“What!” screamed Danny, “What do you mean hit his head!”  
“I mean his head will hit the wall. It’s fine ok… it’s just a possibility.”  
By the time they finished their conversation Sammy had made it to the bottom and just lay there to the confusion of Danny,  
“Why is he asleep. Can you go unconscious from fear?” wondered Danny aloud his breathing speeding up and his heart rate accelerating.   
“C’mon let’s bring him to the nurse. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Said Oliver picking up Sammy and carrying him bridal style hoping to keep suspicion to a minimum but then again why would anyone’s first thought be,   
‘It’s his fault! He has superpowers.’  
Danny was a bit surprised Ollie had the strength to pick up his brother as he didn’t look very strong but Ollie had a lot of strength despite how it looks. He grew up climbing and that gave him a pretty good grip and defined muscles that unless you are looking for them wouldn’t be able to see. He brought him the nurse on the resort and she concluded he just passed out from fear adding the comment of that not being a conclusive answer but he was fine otherwise. Danny meanwhile was waiting, biting his nails, and thinking he should get his parents but he didn’t want to interrupt their dinner.   
In the end all was well Sam woke up, they hung out away from the climbing wall, their parents finished their dinner and they all went home. Oliver was both excited for his powers and keen to learn how to use them without getting people hurt. If you told Oliver a couple days ago you could easily hurt someone by making them fall asleep he wouldn’t have believed you but the more he thought about it the easier, it became to believe. You could make them fall asleep in the middle of a fight or in a dangerous situation. He needed to stop having those thoughts. He didn’t want to hurt anyone and besides there are many ways he could help with his powers like he did with Salem. Oliver was satisfied with today and went to bed ready for the next day.


	13. Finn's annoying cousins

The next day Finn woke up in his house not at all looking forward to seeing his cousins. There was his 15 years old cousin Sally and his 13 years old cousin Eric. He had only met them twice before and both times were absolutely dreadful. They were rude bastards. They always got Finn in trouble even though he was never at fault. He wanted to see them get in trouble this time. Maybe he could see if he had powers, it would be based on one of the sins but not sloth or wrath. Maybe greed or envy. He didn’t exactly know how Salem or Oliver used their powers. They both used different methods. Oliver just said calm down but Salem got upset. Who knows? He’ll just have to wait and see right? He had never thought about what he would do if he had superpowers, his entire life he would talk about ‘the real world’. The real world where people suffer and luck is non-existent not where people get magical godly powers and go on magical adventures finding weird magical underground bunkers. Do you think the bunkers magical? Probably not, he means it is just technology and although the line between science and magic is fine it still exists but who is he to say? He didn’t even know magic existed until yesterday so there’s maybe loads of things he doesn’t know about. He guesses we’ll see, maybe, probably.  
He got ready for the day and was watching YouTube on his iPad when Megan, his sister, came in and told him to come downstairs.  
“Why?” he asked.  
“Because mum and dad said to.”  
“Why though?”  
“Just come on!” she concluded getting increasingly annoyed by her brother.  
Finn followed her downstairs and saw his parents talking to his Aunt.   
“Hi Finny, You’ve grown taller since we last met.” Greeted his Auntie.  
Finn wanted to tell her that’s biology, of course he’s going to grow older but he didn’t.  
“Hi aunt Patty.”  
After saying that Finn started walking away back to his room already reached his limit of social interactions with family.  
“Hang on a second, Finn why don’t you go talk with your cousins they’re in the living room.”  
He grumbled at his mother’s words but started walking towards the room nonetheless. Inside he saw his two cousins but Sally was sitting beside a guy and holding his hands. They were talking and Eric was watching tv. Sally and the guy stopped talking when they noticed Finn.  
“Hi are you Finn, Sally’s cousin?” asked the guy holding out his hand for Finn to shake.  
“Yeah who’re you?” questioned Finn ignoring the opportunity to have physical contact.  
“I’m Alex, Sally’s boyfriend.”  
All Finn did was nod and walk to the sofa to sit down. He saw Sally smirk at him when her boyfriend started cuddling her. It almost made Finn gag, the thought of someone getting that close with his nasty cousin. People having relationships this young always confused Finn. Sally is what? 15 and yet here she he is with a boyfriend but then again loads of kids have partners at this age is it just him being different he’s never loved someone enough to actually want to date them, yes he’s had the occasional small crush like with Justin but it was never too strong. He’s getting distracted he should focus on what’s being said.   
“So Finn do you have a girlfriend or even any friends?” Asked Sally still smirking hoping to get a rise out of him.  
He didn’t answer. He didn’t feel the need to. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of him getting flustered or embarrassed. Though his silence didn’t stop Sally from continuing.  
“Oh I’ll take that as a no. You probably just sit up in your room all alone, all by your lonesome. All alone.” She finished talking, looking at Finn to see his reaction only to be disappointed when his face stayed unreactive.  
Sally started talking to her boyfriend again really obnoxiously. He wondered how Alex could ever like his cousin. She is insufferable. She was probably just obsessed with him and he felt bad for her. Sally started getting really started getting really touchy, feeling his muscles and petting his hair and kissing Alex who seemed to allow it. It disgusted Finn, who hated any physical contact even if it didn’t have anything to do with it.   
“Can you stop. There’s a time and place for that and it’s not here.” He asked them expecting Sally to just ignore him but that’s not what happened.  
They both immediately looked at each other with disgust. Eric looked at them with confusion before going back to the tv not really caring about his sister’s antics. If anyone was more confused it was Finn. Maybe it was his ‘powers’ or maybe he should stop being so self-centred and realise that not everything his because of him. But still it could be or it could be some weird rapid mood swing Finn has never studied psychology so like most things he doesn’t have a clue. The pair continued looking at each other with disgust and stopped cuddling each other.  
“Jesus, what happened to you two being all lovey-dovey.”   
Sally just glared at Finn causing him to chuckle. He finally got her upset whether it was a coincidence or not, he was happy.  
“Do you really hate each other that much? Were you trying to just impress me?” Finn said with an arrogant tone, “C’mon, you love him right?”  
Right after Finn finished his sentence they immediately went back to cuddling and smiling at each other. Now both Finn and Eric were confused. Eric had stopped watching tv and had his eyes fixed on his sister’s weirdness. Finn was absolutely sure that couldn’t be coincidence. He was still in denial about the powers thing despite seeing them first hands but now he was questioning it even more. Could that be him. But what sin would that be. Finn had never bothered remembering them all, he didn’t think he would have to. Maybe it’s… envy? No absolutely not. Maybe it’s… Greed no doesn’t exactly fit. What are the other sins? Is love a sin? It really depends on the kind of love, whether or not it’s unhealthy. He would have to search up the different sins but he didn’t have his phone on him now it would have to wait. Instead he could have fun with his powers. Eric was looking at Finn weirdly.  
“What did you do?” asked Eric started to get a bit riled up.  
“What are you talking about?” inquired Finn innocently as if he had no idea what was happening which was only half true.  
“Oh don’t play dumb with me even though I know it must be hard for you. What did you do with my sister?” To emphasize his question, he pointed to his sister who was currently not listening to busy making out with her boyfriend.  
“I didn’t do shit. What could I even do?”   
“I don’t know! Maybe you hypnotised her or something.” When he finished his sentence he realised how stupid he sounded and his face went red.  
“Hypnotised her? That’s so stupid” Finn started focusing on the tv his poker face still on thoroughly happy he was finally able to mess with them this time. Success.  
Eric started watching the tv again too not having fun with their conversation and incredibly aggravated from Finn’s cockiness. Finn didn’t know exactly what he did but he knew he made Sally and her boyfriend fall in and out of love. Even though there’s no way Eric could know anything about the chest and the S.O.C.A but Finn didn’t want to risk it. He decided he would try it on Sally and Alex when Eric wasn’t in the room. Nothing happened for a good 10 minutes until Finn couldn’t take the suspense anymore and started walking to his room to get his phone.  
“Where’re you going?” asked Eric.  
“To get my phone, be back soon.”   
Finn poked his head around to the kitchen and saw his parents still talking. He continued upstairs until he got to his room. His phone was on his bed waiting for him to pick it up. He searched the sins excited. His looked down the list pride, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth and lust. Lust. Maybe that was it. He did make them fall in and out of love. If he was lust, then he probably made them lust over each other. They were getting really touchy. Well that solves it. He has powers. He is Lust. Great. He felt like there was going to be either a satisfying feeling or maybe even at least a feeling of relief but if anything it was just anti-climactic. He’ll have to tell everyone else tomorrow but he’d have to get through today first. That would be difficult or maybe not so much now with his new experiment material.


	14. Another cousin chapter, this time, Charity's

The next day Charity came home from hockey practice at 9:00 am excited. She loved children. Unlike the rest of her step fathers side of the family her 5-year-old cousin never treated her like an extra. It is just going to be her and her cousin, Nancy. Nancy’s parents are going out for dinner with her parents and Audrey was going out to a friend’s house with the two dogs. Nancy could be a bit of a brat sometimes but Charity didn’t mind it. Nancy, unlike what Finn would say, was not an insufferable, greedy bastard. Finn hated children. She didn’t understand why when they are so adorable. But she could respect his opinion even if she didn’t agree at all.   
It was about 4pm and Nancy had just arrived with her parents.  
“Ok, so make sure she eats all her vegetables. She’s been putting them of for a while.” Explained Nancy’s mother side eyeing Nancy who was distracted by her fingers.  
“I know. Don’t worry I’m going to look after her.” Replied Charity trying to settle her aunts concerns.  
“Alright then I trust you. C’mon honey let’s go.” All the adults left and were soon followed by Audrey taking the bus to her friend’s house.   
“Hi Nancy. C’mon let’s go play in the living room”  
Nancy followed Charity. For the most part Nancy was a good natured child but not when it came to food. She could be well behaved the entire day but then it’s dinner time and all of a sudden she’s huffing in the corner. Charity didn’t mind it though. She knew kids were like that and she had special tricks to dealing with it. She wouldn’t give Nancy her veg on her plate. But put them on her own and Nancy would notice and ask about them. Nancy was a very curious child. She would say it’s a big girl food and Nancy would complain saying she’s a big girl why didn’t she get any. To which she would say you can have some and then BAM Nancy’s eaten all her veg. Most of the time it works but she thinks Nancy’s figuring out the cheat. Which is exactly what happened today. Nancy despite Charity’s best efforts refused to eat her greens.   
“C’mon Nancy it’s so you can grow up big and strong.”  
“No! I don’t want it!” complained Nancy.  
Charity sighed.  
“I want chocolate! Gimme freddo!”  
Once again Charity sighed. Nancy was being very persistent today.  
Charity scolded, “Stop being so greedy Nancy!”  
Nancy immediately shut up, still pouting. A bit confused Charity started feeding her broccoli. Hesitantly Nancy ate it.   
“Well, frick, didn’t think that was going to work.”  
“OHHH. You swore! Charity swore!” Nancy was freaking out in her chair giggling at her babysitter’s antics.  
Charity just stared at her with a smile satisfied with her babysitting capabilities even if it wasn’t at all planned. Children are adorable. A bit bratty yes, but overall worth it. She didn’t understand why anyone would ever choose to give up one pf these angels.  
“C’mon Nancy. You ate your greens right? So…” Charity started looking at the little angel expectantly.  
“CHOCOLATE TIME!” screamed Nancy in response.  
The two rushed off to the cupboard looking for sweets.


	15. Bonding

Ally was HELLA excited. She rarely felt like this, like she could lift the sky. She obviously couldn’t ever, she’s a weak puny human not at all a titan or a god or even a brave demigod. But she couldn’t help but feel ecstatic at the thought of being real life superheroes. Well maybe not superheroes, there is no way in hell Ally was going to go out in a stupid costume and fight people but the thought was nice.   
She was currently standing in the lounge of the bunker with Gwen, Salem and Ellis preparing for the day ahead.   
“Ok so we need to find out this power business, Salem has hers, we should probably try and find ours. There won’t be any documentation on this, I don’t think they knew about this.” Started Ellis, who was practically glimmering with excitement.   
Ally could understand. It’s not every day you get superpowers.   
“Alright I’ll just… try to do something but I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Salem stated with her head down.   
“Yeah just try. Maybe you could go into the forest, find a bird and try it out on that.” Ally suggested swinging her legs while sitting on the kitchen island.  
“No! Why would you even suggest that I’m not hurting anything. I’ll just go to the planning room by myself and try there.” And just as she said Salem left towards the planning room.  
Ally thought Salem was being a bit rude but she’s stressed and Ally has noticed that she can go a bit dark sometimes but it’d perfectly reasonable, right? There’s loads of birds in the world, loads of pigeons. So what’s the harm if a couple get hurt.   
Gwen questioned, “Ok, Ellis what do we do? How do we find out our powers?”   
“How should I know? Just think about the sins and whatever they do, I’m going to the study with a couple books and am going to learn the wonders this bunker holds. You do whatever.” Ellis sauntered towards the library leaving Ally alone with Gwen.  
Ally looked over at Gwen sitting on the sofa still looking down the corridor. She couldn’t help but notice the subtle ways her frizzy, flowing, ginger hair swung around her shoulders when she turned her head or the ways her eyes sparkled when talking about photography or art or when she got nervous she always played with the sleeves of her shirts. Ally noticed everything the happiness, the sadness, the anxiety, just like she was now. Gwen was playing the cuffs of her white button up shirt. Gwen, at least to Ally, looked beautiful. Wearing her button up shirt, her black leggings and grey hoodie. A pretty bland coloured outfit but Ally was not one to judge. All Ally wears is jumpers, mainly black, and jeans, also mainly black.   
“Hey, you alright?” she asked leaping of the island and although she’s not too short, she was short enough for her feet not to be touching the ground. She was the second shortest in the group, the shortest being Ellis.   
“Yeah I’m fine,” Gwen answered giving Ally what she thought was probably a reassuring smile but was in actuality a pained grimace.   
“I don’t think so, what’s wrong? C’mon pancake.”  
That made Gwen chuckle. When by themselves Ally would sometimes call her pancake, ever since the pancake and syrup incident at their last sleepover. It became a bit of a running gag among the two. It was a game, a game to call Gwen that without the others finding out. So far no one’s heard them.  
“Just… thinking… about what this means for us y’know. I’ve always dreamed of having superpowers, maybe flight or invisibility just to make life a bit easier but not like this. This is some weird government thingy that get us killed. I don’t wanna’ die Ally. I don’t want this. Yeah sure it could be nothing, this place has been empty for years but what if it isn’t. What if we get hurt because of this? I just wanted to do a school project not start a fucking magical godly conspiracy.”  
Gwen kept stating different reasons to be upset, to be anxious. Ally couldn’t help it when she started walking towards Gwen’s spot on the couch or when she wrapped her arms around her in a hug. The actions made Gwen stop talking and seek comfort from it. Ally had a face full of curly ginger hair and all she could smell was strawberries, no doubt from her shampoo. They sat there for good minute or so until Gwen spoke up,  
“Uh thanks Ally. I needed that um… we should probably start doing power stuff.”  
Ally was a bit upset to have ended the hug but understood Gwen’s point. She nodded and walked over to one of the drawers in the kitchen. Charity had brought some crisps the past day and tried to fill up the cupboards as much as she could. There was some chocolate, some crisps, some fruit and some bread. Ally picked up some salt and vinegar crisps ad brought the now open packet to Gwen.  
“Can’t do it on an empty stomach now can we?” Ally shook the bag as an invitation to eat which Gwen gladly accepted, “C’mon let’s go find Ellis see if we could do this together.”  
Gwen took Ally’s hand and led her through the bunker.


	16. Fear of rodents

Salem was absolutely mortified. By practically everything. Salem’s life was just one tragedy after the other. Her first best friend left her for a group of ‘cooler’ kids in her first school then her mother died and her dad lost his job and her grades started slipping and now this. WHY IS LIFE SO HARD? Do the gods just hate her or something? Maybe instead of complaining she should just try and deal with these powers of hers.   
Okay, what should she do now? Her powers were an anomaly. The only evidence she has of them is shouting and causing some ears to bleed. Maybe she screams and hurts people but Ellis said she was wrath, does wrath scream? She definitely hurts people, not exactly the best power. Salem didn’t want to hurt anyone. She could do what Ally suggested and find a bird but that’s cruel, even so how could she practice or even investigate her powers.   
While lost in thought, Salem didn’t notice the mouse that had snuck into the room. The furry creature squeaked catching Salem’s attention. She gasped from panic.   
“Nice little mousey. Nice little demon creature from the deepest depths of hell.”  
Salem has had some really bad past experiences with mice, well it was actually a rat but it doesn’t matter to Salem they are both terrifying. One time, when she was about 7, a rat got into her cottage and bit her. She got rat-bite fever, luckily she was able to get help before it got too serious. It was very upsetting for a young child. Ever since most small rodents give her the creeps much like the little demon in the planning room is now.  
The mouse was scuttling around the room while Salem was standing on the seat she was previously sitting on calmly. Her breathing quickened and her hands were shaking.   
“You little monster! Little devil! Demon creature! Burn in hell!” unsurprisingly Salem’s insults weren’t stopping the mouse from its journey around the room.  
“Stop it little beast! Die!” surprisingly her insults actually did something.  
The mouse curled up and froze in place. Salem stood still, legs still shaking, on the chair for a minute or two waiting for the evil thing to jump back up and attack her. It stayed in its spot  
‘Well… fuck.’  
She got down from her chair and slowly walked to a tissue box on the side table beside the blackboard. The mouse was picked up inside the tissues and brought to the bin beside the planning table.   
‘At least I practiced my powers heh…what the fuck was that’  
Salem started pacing around the room, thinking about how it could even work. It defies all scientific knowledge… Well this isn’t really science at all. It’s magic… or some shit. There isn’t any way it happened well except for the fact that she got angry. It would be pretty lame if she could only use her powers when she gets angry or upset. Maybe she should look at it from a different angle. What does Wrath do? She didn’t want it to just be hurting things because that’s a bit… cruel. Wrath is basically a synonym for anger, right?   
Salem continued thinking occasionaly getting out of breath from her constant march around the room. In her frustrations her legs gave out and she fell onto the sofa at the side of the room.   
‘This is too confusing… well not confusing but I don’t have all the answers, how does Ellis expect me to find out shit about this?’  
Salem lay there, her eyes closed and her body relaxed. In quick time she had managed to fall asleep completely calm compared to herself five minutes prior.


	17. Trying

Ellis was in the study reading from a book called ‘How to bake the greatest delicacies of the French’. You could say he got a bit distracted but he just couldn’t resist. He’s been meaning to step up his baking game. Anyway, Ellis had collected a couple books about many different things connected to the bunker. The baking book was just a one-time guilty pleasure. He had lightly skimmed them, most of them were useless to their predicament. There was one somewhat helpful book, the bible. But that’s only because that’s where the sins come from. There isn’t exactly any versus there saying  
‘Hey, just to let you know in case you ever get possessed by the sins or get their powers or whatever this’ll help you deal with it.’  
Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth. Sloth and possibly Wrath are taken. Who could he be? What powers would he have? Greed would be fun, maybe he could make people want things. Quite similar to lust y’know making them want love. That could be very interesting. Maybe I could help Ally and Gwen finally get together. They think they’re so sneaky with it, they aren’t. That would be cruel though, almost like forcing them into it.   
How am I supposed to do this? There is nothing written down about this and I have no idea where to begin. I’m not Salem, I can’t just take charge and say things like  
“Let’s figure this out! Everything’s going to be fine!”  
Or like Ally, able to just read all of these files without getting distracted. I wish I could do that. The effect was instantaneous. Ellis suddenly felt like he could run a marathon but at the same he felt like he just wanted to lie in bed doing nothing. He decided to use this weird burst of energy to get some work done.   
One minute became ten as he thoroughly read through many of the files in the room. During his search, an intrusion appeared. Gwen and Ally barged in holding hands. They separated at the sight of Ellis, who’s energy had depleted the moment they entered the room.   
“What do you want!” he snarled not like being brought out of his reading.  
“Well, Ellis, you just left us alone in the lounge and we had no idea what to do so… here we are.” Gwen put emphasis on her words by sticking her arms out.  
“Uhh! C’mon I was reading like a beast there and you just ruined my mojo.”  
“Ok first of, don’t say mojo it makes me think of mojo jojo from power puff girls and two, did you find anything useful?”  
“No, not at all.”  
“Since when do you read? You never read anything when I recommend it.” Ally’s eyebrows were scrunched in confusion.  
“Well that’s not… just now, ok. I don’t know.”  
“Uh huh are you sure you weren’t just staring at a book for a while and felt embarrassed about it so you told us you were reading.” Gwen played with her hair as she spoke.  
“Yes I’m sure!”  
“Alright what do we do?”  
“Well lets… test to see if we have powers.” Ellis took out his phone and searched up the sins, “okay we’ll start with… greed.”  
Over the course of the next hour Ellis, Gwen and Ally tried using superpowers. All of their tests failed. When Ally tried to make Ellis hungry, it failed. When Gwen tried to make Ally greedy, it failed. Ellis had a constant frown on his face.   
“Well that was a bust.” Ellis spoke up, cleaning up the files he took out.  
“Yeah but it was fun and besides I’m sure it will come in due time.” Gwen reassured Ellis patting him on the back.  
“But I want it to come now. We have freaking superpowers. How are you calm about this? What do we even do in the meantime.”  
“Normal shit like going to school and hey while we’re at it we now have a cool clubhouse to meet at.”  
“This isn’t a club house it’s a very secret, very complex bunker.”  
“Yeah, yeah but it’s also a dope place to hang out. C’mon we already know that it’s safe so we can just relax and let the moment come to us.”  
“Fine but I’m going to complain the whole time.”  
“Sure whatever, c’mon let’s go get Salem and just… hang out y’know.”  
“Sure why not?”  
The trio walked to the planning to see a sleeping Salem. They spent the rest of their day hanging out, exploring the bunker and chatting.


	18. Threshold of The Golden Bench

Today was Sunday. Everyone was busy doing homework or hanging out with family or just needed some time to themselves so Finn was bored out of his mind. He could just watch mindless YouTube videos for hours on end or listen to music for hours on end but there was nothing to watch or listen to watch. So here he was. Nothing to do and an entire day left. Maybe he could explore his powers more. The prior day he found out about his powers and decided to mess with his cousins. Sally went home that day with a huge scowl on her face and Finn went to his room with a smirk. He found out many things that day. For one he can cause people to fall in or out of love somewhat at least. Well it was more like falling in or out of lust which he didn’t even know if that made sense but whatever goes. Two he can make them obsess over themselves or himself or anything really. He made Eric, the younger one, obsess over this fluffy yellow pillow in his living room. It would be quite confusing if you didn’t know what was going on. And he’s fairly sure he heard Sally say It’s the third time that week so… Eric’s a weird guy. And three he had no idea what to do with his powers. He wanted to do something but there was nothing to do. He hasn’t texted his friends about it yet and he knew he wanted to wait until tomorrow. If he told them today, they would be constantly texting him and he did not want that. Texting was not his thing. Maybe he could just talk to his siblings… HA! No that would be emotional suicide. His parents are also out. He could just go out to the park and walk with his earphones for a while, there was a special place among the trees that he had found a couple months ago. Only he knew about it, it was beautiful. A circle of tall trees and a single bench in the middle. It was hidden to the average eye, perfect for people who want to be left alone. Finn loved to go there and just lie down on the bench, listening to music. Yes, that’s perfect for today. Exactly the kind of relaxing he was looking for.  
After getting a bag with his phone, earphones, a sandwich and some money just in case he went downstairs to deal with his parents.  
“Mum. I’m going on a walk I’ll be gone for like… an hour or something.”  
“Ok Finn just make sure you come home in time.”  
“Mum. I always do!”  
“Sure Finny, but you know the rules when you come home we’re doing your interview.”  
“Fine! Whatever!”  
Finn slammed the door shut on his way out now really needing to relax. ‘The interviews’ were something his parents did any time he went out without them. Ever since that one time an old friend of his had smashed a window and he just happened to be there, they don’t trust him anymore. He told his friend not to do it and besides they aren’t friends anymore. It was fine for the most part but after finding the bunker, it’s a bitch to come up with a believable lie to his parents. But now it doesn’t matter he can let his worries fall away by listening to music ignoring everything and everyone.  
One fifteen-minute walk later and he was entering the threshold of the spray-painted golden bench. Expecting no more human contact for the next hour might’ve been the main reason Finn reacted the way did upon seeing a girl on the bench. She had dark brown hair and sparkly green eyes. Her skin was pale as fuck; she clearly didn’t get outside enough but then again he wasn’t one to talk since his looked like a vampire.  
“What the fuck are you doing here!” he snarled almost dropping his phone from his rushed reaction.   
“I’m laying here obviously. Kind of a bit of an overreaction don’t you think.” The girl smirked putting down the book she was reading  
“Yeah sure I just… didn’t expect seeing another human here.”  
“Another human? What were you expecting a werewolf?”  
“What the hell, no. The wildlife here obviously.” He mocked the girls previous condescending tone.  
‘Maybe werewolves do exist… I mean superpowers do.’ He thought.  
“Fine whatever but I was here first so you leave I stay.”  
“What no! I’ve been coming here for months and you’ve already had time in here.”  
“Yeah well why don’t we just be here together.”  
“Fuck no. I came here for zero human interaction. You count as that.”  
“Well then leave.”  
“No.”  
“Then stay but for sure I’m not moving.”  
“Fine.” Finn sat down on the dry grass harrumphing as he did.  
As he was about to put his earphones in the girl spoke,   
“I’m Briar. Briar Fox.”  
“Ok.”  
“Who’re you?”  
“No”  
“No?”  
“No human interaction. Cut the small talk, I want to be left alone in solitude.”  
“Jeez you’re boring, fine if you really want to that much I’ll leave you.”  
Finn’s eyes light up at that remark,  
“Really!”  
“nope.”  
“Fine! Whatever!” angrily putting in his earphones Finn ignored any words coming out of the girl’s… Briar’s mouth.  
Every so often while Finn was lying down with his eyes closed listening to the music he would feel something poke him in the arm. Although any time he would open his eyes Briar would still be reading her book, smirking. Finn eventually grew to expect the pokes and planned to catch the girl in the act which is exactly what happened. The next time he felt the nip in his arm he opened his eyes and saw Briar beside him.   
“Can you please stop?” he asked trying to keep his composure.   
“No.” she replied sitting back down on the bench.  
“WHY? Just leave me alone!”  
“No, I want to talk c’mon. I saw what you were listening to. Personally, I think my chemical romance has great music.”  
“sure, whatever. I’m leaving if you’re just gonna’ keep annoying me like this.”  
“Fine do that. It’s not affecting me; I’ll just have lost a potential friend.”  
“We were never going to be friends. You’re just some rando I saw in MY spot.”  
“Ok but at least tell me your name before you leave. It’s the least you could do.”  
“Finn,” he started walking away but Briar spoke up again.  
“Finn… like Finn O’Kelly?”  
“What? How do you know?”  
“So you are Finn O’Kelly?”  
“Yea but how did you know that?”  
“I’m mates with Justin, y’know the guy you abandoned.”  
“Justin’s a dick. I told him I wouldn’t be his friend if he did it and he did it so fuck him and y’know what fuck you.” Finn stormed of ignoring the girl’s,  
“Okay be like that!”  
The rest of the day Finn was in a grouchy mood. Snapping at anyone who would even slightly annoy him. His sleep that night was stormy and full of nightmares.


	19. School

Monday the 13th of April. Monday is, at least in Charity’s opinion, the worst day of the week. Tuesday, there was a fun schedule in school including her favourite subject; technology and design. Wednesday, you’re half way through the week and there’s hockey practice afterschool so that’s enjoyable. Thursday, was always the day her and her friends hung out either at Salem’s, the forest or Oliver’s. Friday, the last day of school. Saturday, hockey practice and then a day off. Sunday, another day off. Monday, had nothing it was the first day of school, there was both double maths and double English and the rest of the day was boring. Today was Monday.  
As always the group met up at the school gates. They all went to Consman Riverside secondary school. Charity had been there since year 8 with Oliver, Gwen and Ally. Ellis transferred in year 9 with Salem and Finn coming in a year later. Consman was a big, burly, brick building with about 1200 students in it, around 30 per most classes. Charity was in class 11C with Gwen and Finn. Classes start at 9:40 and register is taken about 9:45 so the seven had plenty of time.   
“Ok, guys after school back to the bunker right?” Oliver was closing his water bottle as he talked.  
“Yeah sure, by the way guys I’m pretty sure I found a power of mine.” Finn turned off and put away his phone preparing for the day. Their school didn’t allow phones throughout the day.  
“Really what?” Gwen asked with interest but her tone of voice made it seem like faux interest.  
“Well I made my cousin fall in and out of love with her boyfriend and made my other cousin obsessed with this pillow in my living room so… Lust I think.”  
Ellis snorted after he spoke,  
“Lust? Dude that sucks.”  
“How so? I could very easily embarrass you by making you fall in love with Beth over there.”  
“Oh hell no! Don’t… don’t that.”  
“Don’t do that what?”  
“Please!” Ellis crossed his arms as he reluctantly replied, “No one wants to fall in love with Beth.”  
“Ellis half the school is in love with Beth.” Salem pointed out while looking at the guys ogling at Beth who even when in the uniform managed to be beautiful.  
“I know! She’s beautiful and has a nice personality and is smart and-.”  
“Are you sure you don’t love her already.” Joked Charity as she interrupted Ellis.  
“What! No! She’s just a respectable person y’know.”  
“Sure.” Charity smugly agreed, “but while on the topic of powers I too found something.”  
“Ok what?” asked Ally raising an eyebrow.  
“So I was babysitting my cousin and y’know kids are naturally greedy so when I told her to stop being so greedy about her food and she stopped I was a bit confused but just assumed she was being obedient for once however I started noticing other things. Later that day when Audrey came home she tried to take some of my share of the sweets and she backed down when I again told her to not be greedy and I know, for sure, that she would never do that so obviously somethings up. I tested it on her later and I made her really want some of my step mum’s jewellery and Audrey already has so much jewellery so that’s definitely something I did.”  
“So… greed… you’re Greed.” Conformed Ellis.  
“Yeah I guess so.”  
“Right so that leaves envy, gluttony and pride and also me, Ally and Gwen.” Ellis counted on his fingers as he spoke,   
“Maybe we’ll find out today.”  
Before anyone else could speak the bell rang and the group said their goodbyes making their ways to their classes.  
After registration 11C’s first class of the day was chemistry. Today they had to get into partners and Finn had already been taken by Gwen leaving Charity to her lonesome. By the time everyone else had gone into partners there were just two people left, Charity and Ash Raines. Ash was kind of a rebel. There were some rumours that he once punched a teacher in his old school but Finn said he hadn’t. Like Ellis he moved here in year 9 and Finn came from the same school as him, Oakland Secondary school. Apparently Consman Riverside has the reputation of accepting anyone into their school so anytime someone has to leave their old school Consman is the first choice. Ash seemed like one of the kids who would never study or doesn’t even care about his grades but from what Charity had seen he did amazing in almost every subject. His hair was light brown, wavy and constantly messy and his eyes were a grey blue shade resembling sapphires. His skin was a rich hazel colour. Charity would say he was quite handsome if it weren’t for the fact that he wasn’t exactly Charity’s type. Her type was more so blonde hair, brown eyes. This was the first time she would ever be talking to him so introductions were due.  
“Hi.” Charity said walking over to ash, who was sitting in his stool holding his booklet.  
“Hey” was all he replied.  
‘Not very talkative then’ decided Charity.  
“We have to be partners since y’know were the only ones left. I’m Charity.” She held out her hand.  
Ash laughed.  
“What?” asked Charity.  
“Nothing, it’s just… I knew someone called Charity once anyway… yeah hi we’re partners I guess. C’mon let’s do this then.”  
Charity took a seat beside the boy and got to work.   
By home time Charity was tired out of her mind and ready to relax. The entire day had already been forgotten and pushed into the farthest reaches of her mind. Despite her sleepiness she would gladly go to the bunker and practice her powers. It was an hour and a half after school ended by the time they all got their seeing as Finn and Salem have clubs. Finn had coding club and Salem was in the choir.  
“Ok.” Ellis started the conversation, “Powers. Charity’s greed. Finn’s…lust. Salem’s wrath. Oliver’s sloth. So that leaves us three to find our powers and you four to practice.”  
“Ellis last time we tried to find our powers we got nowhere.” Gwen pointed out.  
“Yeah I know but maybe something’ll happen today.”  
“Maybe Ellis. Maybe.” Gwen patted him on the back in a mocking tone.   
Everyone was sitting in the lounge area of which Ally, Gwen and Charity were eating the sandwiches Ellis made and brought.   
“So let’s begin. Charity can work with someone trying to make them be greedy by… making them want a sandwich. Finn can make someone obsess over one of the sofa’s pillows. Salem can… I don’t… do what she did last time. Oliver can make someone fall asleep. And we can just try finding something.” Ellis paced the room as he talked.  
Everyone moved to positions and got into groups. Charity sat in the kitchen with Oliver. Ally, Salem and Gwen sat talking on the sofa. That left Ellis to practice… with Finn. Charity didn’t expect that to go well.


	20. Power testing

This was not going to be fun. He’s not saying he doesn’t like Finn. He preferred to hang out with Ally and Gwen. They’re friends, yes but sometimes Finn could just be REALLY irritating. For some reason he always had something to say against him. However, they had some similar interests. Although Finn would never admit it, Ellis had seen him enjoy reading some romance novels. Ellis wasn’t much of a reader but he did like the occasional romcom.   
“Okay so we need to practice your powers.” Ellis started the conversation, again.  
“You’re going to willingly let me do that to you.” Asked Finn genuinely surprised.  
“Well… it’s for our powers so sure just not too embarrassing. Please.”  
“No promises dude. Anyway you see Salem over there.” Finn pointed towards Salem causing Ellis to look over there, “You love her now.”  
Ellis felt the blood rush to his face as he looked at the love of his life. Seconds became minutes of him just staring at Salem who eventually started catching on.  
“Yo Ellis, Finn what’s going on.”  
“Oh nothing just practising my powers.” Finn replied smugly.  
“Well stop it it’s getting creepy.”  
“Ok Fine! Way to ruin the fun. Ellis stop loving her.”  
Ellis snapped out of his trance and all of a sudden the blush on his face wasn’t from love.  
“Hey dude you can’t complain, you let me do it.” Finn said noticing Ellis’s expression.  
“I know… but you didn’t have to do it for so long.” Ellis avoided looking at Salem.  
“Sure whatever c’mon let’s see if you have any powers or such.”  
Elsewhere Charity was having a blast with Oliver. The pair were joking around.   
“Maybe we should actually try our powers.” Said Oliver out of breath from the round of laughter the two had shared.  
“Yeah yeah sure. Ok, I’ll just… there see this sandwich.” Charity held up her half eaten sandwich, “you want this now.”  
And just like she said Oliver immediately grabbed the sandwich and kept it from anyone who came near him. Meanwhile Charity continued to laugh her ass of.   
“Ok. OK. Stop. You can stop now.”  
The sandwich fell to the plate it was previously laying on as Oliver came to his senses.   
“Jesus… that feels… felt weird.” Oliver was looking at Charity his eyebrows scrunched.  
“Yeah… now your turn c’mon. Knock me out.”  
“Oh calm down Charity.”  
She fell limp in Ollie’s arms, not surprising him.  
“Okay wake up.”  
She straightened up and looked at Oliver her face now relaxed.  
“Well, that’s that. We have powers. We can use them what else should we do.”  
“Charity you do realise a week ago we were just teenagers and now we have not only SUPERPOWERS but also a freaking SECRET BUNKER and yet here you are bored.”  
“Yeah I know but it’s a bit trivial isn’t it. We have these fabulous powers and nothing to use them for.”  
“We could use them to find the other chests y’know the virtues, the apocalyptic things.”  
“Isn’t that a bit dangerous and what is even the point.”  
“I don’t know but it’d be something to do and we could end up figuring out more about our powers and just what exactly these powers are.”  
“Ok sure but we can do that later for now we have to study, the school exams are coming up soon and we can’t be unprepared.”  
“I know I know of course you would care so much about them but you do realise that there are more important, and Fun, matters at hand.”  
“More important than our futures.”  
“You know what? I have no comeback for that.”  
“Ha, I win anyway c’mon let’s see how the others are doing.”  
The pair walked over to the rest and saw Salem poking fun at Ellis for his temporary feelings, Ally was joking around with Gwen and Finn was messing with something on the control box.  
“We’re finished with practice it was pretty easy, it’s literally just saying a couple words.” Charity caught the attention of everyone.  
“Ok I guess we can just… relax now.” Salem laid back on the sofa as she spoke.  
“Wait guys hang on,” Finn stopped messing with the board and brought up his smartphone, “So I was thinking about the fact that this bunker is always open and how others could just walk in on this so… I made an alarm thingy that will notify me on my phone if anyone ever walks into the base.”  
“Ok.” Salem said quite disinterested in the topic.  
Finn sighed, turned off the control box and joined the rest of the groups chat. They spent the rest of the day hanging out in the lounge, occasionally moving to the bunker study so Ally could show everyone the book she read. Ellis would say, in his opinion, that day was rather enjoyable.


	21. Shitty morning

The next day, as always getting up was a pain. She had to deal with another day of this puny existence but also had to deal with the bullshit of society. The first asshole she had the misfortune of talking to was her mum. Her dad always gets to work earlier than she woke up and her mum would leave later than her. She was such a pain. In the morning she was always snappy at people however she did make Ally her lunch for school so that’s nice. Her mum also made sure she had all her books for school. Even still Ally would rather leave her alone to do her business. A bit like her mum she did not like talking to people in the morning but after her 15-minute walk to school she was ready to start the day. Today though, she was interrupted during her walk by asshole number two. A girl with black hair, green eyes and hazel skin bumped into Ally knocking her headphones onto the dirty floor. After Ally had picked them back up she called to the girl,  
“Hey watch where you’re walking!”  
The girl turned around her face distorted with anger,  
“The fuck did you say to me!”  
Luckily no one else was around to hear the girls argue. Ally’s walking route was on a main road, yes, but the road was mainly used for cars and in this early of the morning no one left their house walking.   
“I said watch where you’re going!” Ally was fully hoping the girl would stop the argument so she could walk onto school whether that’s by apologising or just stomping away angrily.  
“Who are YOU to tell ME to watch where I’m going?”  
“I’m the girl you fucking bumped into!”  
“Whatever you should’ve just moved out of the way!”  
“You! Should’ve watched where you were going! I! shouldn’t have had to of done anything!”  
“Fine” the girl said calmly  
Ally was satisfied at winning the argument so much so that she decided to ignore the sudden 180 in temperament.   
“You were right. I was wrong. Can I go now?” the girl said not even waiting for ally’s response and walking away.  
Ally continued on her journey only to meet asshole number three. A guy with black hair, brown eyes and cream skin had accidently spilled some coke on her shoes. It would take some time to dry but eventually it would be fine however it would be an absolute PAIN going through school like that.   
“What the fuck!” Ally realised she was being rude but she had had one hell of a morning.  
“Oh I’m sorry.” The man spoke.  
Ally sighed, “It’s… ok. It’s fine.”  
She started to walk forward but halted as she heard the guy speak again,  
“Uh miss that coke was £1 so if you would please pay for what was spilled”  
‘The audacity of this bitch.’ Thought Ally.  
“Oh hell no you fucking spilled it so you get another one yourself!” Ally was completely done with the day and it had barely begun.  
“Well yes… but I wouldn’t have spilled it if it weren’t for you so…” the man looked at Ally with a smile, like it was obvious.  
“Fuck to the NO!”  
The man sighed, “A girl your age shouldn’t be swearing like that.”  
“I’ll swear if I fucking want to when the person I’m talking to is blaming ME for something THEY did! SO GOODDAY!”  
Ally stomped of, her shoes wet and her mind fuming. By the time she had got to school she had calmed down enough to explain to her friends everything that happened only to get sympathetic looks. Overall the school day was nothing compared to the shit morning she had but it doesn’t mean it was good.


	22. Queen of Consman

So… Finn was not doing so well. He started of his day to a blaring alarm that was way too loud and then proceeded to skip out on breakfast. Buying something at the canteen would probably be his best bet but he was too tired to, probably tired from the lack of food but WHO CARES. He felt a bit better finding out the ‘hell of a morning’ Ally had so at least that’s something. In the middle of the day, at lunch, Kiara Rose the self-proclaimed ‘queen of Consman Riverside’ decided to show up. She blended in quite well with the crowd with her light brown hair, dark brown eyes and black skin, she also seemed to be as silent as a feather as she walked her shoes making little to no sound. Most people thought she was pretty nice and pretty… pretty however for some reason Kiara found pleasure in tormenting Charity or as she called her ‘the orphaned bastard child’. Something to do with Charity taking her position as centre forward in the hockey club. No matter the reason why it was so annoying. Kiara liked to think she affected Charity with her remarks and sometimes she did but for the most part she just made a fool of herself. Today was one of the bad days where she got into Charity’s head,  
“So bastard child, I heard from a certain someone you snuck out of your house the other day,”  
I heard Charity mutter a quiet ‘dammit Audrey’,  
“Are you doing drugs?!” Kiara put way too much of a dramatic expression into her words which only succeeded in making the seven snicker,   
“Y’know, you’re never going to fix your relationships with your carers or your sister or I’m sure your friends don’t really like you either.”  
At her words Charity’s joyous expression faltered, a bit confusedly considering Kiara never said her friends never liked her as that was clearly a lie,  
“C’mon bastard child, why are you so hopeful of that.”  
The moment those words came out of her mouth Charity’s face turned to pure horror. Not wanting to listen anymore, she stomped of looking to be on the verge of tears,  
“It seems I’ve gotten into her head… that’s fun. Goodbye lower-class men.”   
She walked away swaying her hips as she did leaving six confused teenagers. In a split second they all realised they should be going to Charity and soon found her in the playground just staring at the ground. She noticed the group walking towards her and smiled at them,  
“Hey guys, so…”  
“Are you ok? You normally don’t run out like that.” Oliver put his hand on her shoulder comfortably as he asked.  
“Yeah I don’t know what happened… I just felt like all happiness just left my body… she spoke and I guess… I just couldn’t take it anymore… I’m sorry for leaving you guys alone with her.”   
“You don’t have to apologise for being upset Charity,” Salem walked up to her, “C’mon next period it’s technology and I know that’ll surely cheer you up but you can’t do that if you don’t eat so… let’s go get you some chips from the canteen.”  
Charity broke into a smile and nodded making her way towards the doors. Somewhere in the mix of things Charity had started holding hands with Oliver and that didn’t go unnoticed by Finn who just smirked at the display of affection. He decided he might as well get some food too since all he ate at break was a sausage roll.   
The end of the day was alright, it ended with double physics. Ellis had to help his family with something today, like he always did and Salem had her part time job, on Tuesdays she does babysitting or something Finn didn’t really know. Gwen was visiting her granny and No one really wanted to meet up, normally they would only meet up afterschool on Thursday occasionally on the weekends for birthdays or events. Finn had nothing to do, once again. He was starting to see a pattern, life just pretty boring. Talking to his family was a no go and his homework was all finished so he might as well visit his special place. Last time his special place had been corrupted by a virus but what are the chances of him meeting her a third time. So he set out towards threshold of the spray-painted golden bench.   
Once there Finn walked past the circle of trees and found the golden bench which was currently occupied by a girl with straight, dark- brown hair.  
‘Fucking hell!” Finn screamed into his mind,  
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Finn asked crossing his arms.  
“Sitting, why?” the girl… Briar looked him dead in the eye.  
“What are you doing back here.”  
“Well, last time I checked this was a public place.”  
Finn scowled but said nothing more as he walked over to the patch of grass he sat in last time.  
‘Great another day of annoyance’ he thought.  
“So… Finn, how’s life?”  
“I don’t appreciate talking when I’m listening to music” out of politeness Finn paused his music.  
“Well I just want to get to know you.”  
“And I don’t care. Do I look like I care?”  
“Justin complains about you.”  
Now this caught Finn’s attention.  
“He says,” she puffed out her chest to make herself seemed bigger and imitated the deep voice of a boy, “Finn was a bastard and a pussy, he left me because he’s too scared to stand up to his parents”  
Briar smirked as she saw Finn get angrier and angrier. He stood up in silence leaving his bag behind and walked over to the girl. Her smile faltered as Finn stood his ground in front of her.  
“Tell Justin that HE IS ABSOLUTE FOOL WHO KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING INTO WHEN HE BROKE THAT WINDOW! HE KNEW MY PARENTS WOULD PUNISH ME! SO FUCK HIM!”  
Finn grabbed onto Briar’s wrists causing the girl to yelp.  
“GOT THAT!” he screamed in her face.  
She nodded frantically. He let go at this.   
“I’m sorry. I truly am, just thought you’d want to know.”  
She looked to the floor in guilt as she spoke, trying to save the conversation.  
“Well you thought wrong.” He sighed, softening his expression and picked up his bags leaving Briar alone and shocked.  
“I’ll make sure to tell him!” the girl shouted hoping to reach Finn through the trees.  
‘I’m sure you will’ thought Finn as he trudged through the park stomping his feet from frustration,  
‘Now I just have to sit at home!’  
“Hey Wait!” Finn turned around and saw Briar running towards him.  
“I’m sorry, trust me, I really am.” Finn calmed down his anger enough to at least take into consideration Briar’s words,  
“You can… you can have the bench I don’t want to sit there anymore.” She finished not looking Finn in the eyes.  
“Thank you… Briar, I accept your apology but if we ever have the misfortune of meeting again I should hope you don’t bring it up. Again!”  
She nodded with enthusiasm hoping that she hadn’t ruined any possible friendship she could’ve had with Finn.   
“Hey can I… I have your number.” he looked at her with disdain to which she started freaking out, “Or it’s fine if you don’t… o-or… i-it’s just ‘cause I… would like to… to arrange seating times, yeah… so we don’t randomly meet up at the golden bench again. Ha”  
She played with the hem of her shirt while waiting for Finn’s answer.  
“Ok,” Briar looked up in shook and just stared at Finn’s smirk, “Fine why not?”  
Realisation crossed over Briar’s face but disappeared as quickly as it came and soon they had each other’s numbers in their phones. She walked away relieved and satisfied with the salvation of their relationship.   
‘I don’t know why I did that but I guess… she did seem really sorry.’   
Finn didn’t think any more of it and started towards the threshold of the spray-painted golden bench.  
A murderer lay awake at night. The police had come to her house and spoke with her brown haired mother. ‘Her father had gone missing’, they said. ‘We’re sorry we can’t do anything right now’, they said.   
“This is awful.” Her mother told the ginger haired, blue-eyed detective, “please-please find my boyfriend.”  
The detective looked over her mother’s shoulder and raised his eyebrow at her,  
“Ma’am is that your daughter?”  
“Huh? Oh yeah- yeah she is.”  
“We will have to talk to her about this.”  
“Uhh…n- alright. HONEY! C’MERE!”  
“Yes?” the murderer, who was listening from behind the kitchen door, walked over to the intimidating detective.  
Her mother put out her cigarette on the ash tray beside the front door,  
“This nice detective wants to ask you some questions.”  
The man took out his notebook,  
“Your father was presumed missing at 2:30 last Thursday, I assume you would be in school at this time, yes?”  
The murderer’s hands were shaking,  
“Emm… no that was a teachers training day.”  
“Why are you shaking? It’s ok.”  
“I’m-I’m sorry I’ve just never met- had a detective question me.”  
“It’s alright, we’ll find your father as soon as we can.”  
“Thanks sir.”  
“We’re going to have to come back later to search the house.”  
The murderer could feel her heart miss a beat and her hands start shaking.  
“Of course, detective…?”  
“Green. Mitchell Green.”


	23. Wrath

Wednesday. Yesterday Salem had tried to see if she had any other powers but you can’t necessarily force this to happen and it’s really hard to focus on it when you have to look after two little Devils. The McCoy siblings, only a year apart in age. The most hyper and evil little boys to ever exist. The entire night Salem had been trying to stop them from fighting each other or just biting things or god forbid bite her. They don’t seem to like each other very much and only work together when it’s to torture other people. She talked to their parent’s about it and they just said they were dealing with it and it would soon be fixed. If she actually cared, that would be a bit concerning but that was just a onetime gig and she will never see those brats again and despite the trouble she had with them she would never wish it didn’t happen. They helped her discover something fantastic. Another power at her disposal… at least it isn’t just when she gets angry. Anyway, the boys were brawling and Salem just wanted some peace and quiet, she scolded them and told them to stop but they didn’t because y’know kids are, in Finn’s words, ‘little bastards’. Nothing she did stopped them until she shouted,  
“Stop fighting! Stop… hating each other, Jesus Christ!”  
She didn’t think of what she was saying until the words came out and the boys calmed and looked at her, no longer fighting or arguing. At first, Salem thought it was because she said… screamed Jesus Christ but if it were the kids would have been pointing and chanting  
‘Salem swore! Salem swore! We’re telling our parents!’  
It took a second but Salem’s mind drifted to the wrath powers as the boys started playing peacefully with the plastic dinosaurs together.  
“Hey.” Started Salem, crouching down beside the boys calming her voice,   
“Don’t you guys hate each other?”   
The affect was instantaneous and the boys started hitting each with the dinosaurs.  
Salem stood up and thought to herself,   
‘Shit. That’s a thing. Make’s sense… sort of. So I control wrath… oh.’ It suddenly clicked in Salem’s mind and she couldn’t believe her stupidity,  
‘Okay, that was quite obvious Salem why didn’t you think of that… Maybe I should stop the boys before they hurt each other.’  
“Hey boys, you’re family and families don’t fight.”  
This stopped them and Salem patted herself on the back, not literally, and had a smug smile across her face.  
‘Not too shabby Salem, not too shabby indeed… at least you can do some good with this part of your powers’ she thought sadly.  
Coming back to Wednesday, Salem had prepared to tell her friends all about her powers to which she proceeded to do. Everyone was both satisfied and excited except Ellis who just seemed to get grouchier that he didn’t have his powers yet. Out of everyone she would say Ellis was the one who wanted these powers the most, the poor boy had told the group several times that his favourite superpowers to have would be shapeshifting then he could shapeshift into a version of himself that had all the superpowers… Those were weird conversations. Still, despite himself, he was happy for Salem. At least now she wouldn’t worry about herself only hurting people.   
The group lately had been talking about what to do with their powers or if they should even do anything at all. Oliver really wanted to look for the other boxes and the other bunkers however no one else was really that into the idea. Finn said we just live our lives a bit easier and in the meanwhile he could put a lock on the bunker, I don’t know why but he really likes the bunker. He doesn’t even seem to care about his powers. Charity and Gwen agreed with Finn more so on the ‘just living our lives’ part and to be honest so did Salem. Ally brought up maybe telling someone else about this but was quickly put down seeing as we know no one who would do any good with that information. And Ellis, Ellis wanted to become superheroes… not exactly her cup of tea and apparently neither was it anyone else’s. He immediately said it was just a joke but Salem could see he had hope behind his words however not enough to guilt everyone into agreeing. Besides, they are just teenagers not playboy millionaires or genius scientists or aliens.   
In the end everyone decided to just go with the flow, to focus on exams and just use the bunker as a hangout place, a study or in Ally’s cause a main source of reading material. So that’s what Salem did today, she tried not to think about her powers but what’s the point of having them if you can’t use them. They never said they couldn’t and Salem did like to cause some chaos every now and then. So that’s just what she did today, at first she went slowly but eventually she became confident. No one else other than her friends were going to know it was her so she can do whatever plus it could be considered practice of her powers so… Anyway, she started by causing an argument between her teacher and this really loud kid in her class, Andy, so the rest of the period she didn’t have to do any work for maths. The next thing she did was stop that Kiara bitch from attacking Charity anymore and now they’re friends… or just not enemies at the least. And for the finale she saved this nice quiet kid, Melvin, from a couple of assholes so overall Salem was quite pleased with herself.   
She decided to go straight home today considering Oliver had rugby and Charity had hockey practice so the group wasn’t meeting up. Her dad had asked her why she suddenly started going out with her friends so much and, even though it killed her to, she lied to him saying she was just studying with them. Things seemed to be turning around with him and their lives. Salem was able to start planting some more flowers outside in the garden with the help of Ellis and she was even able to sell some of the ones they had to cut. She’s been going steady at her jobs and now with what she did with the boys, somehow able to stop their fighting, their parents had recommended her to loads of others so that was going well. Her dad had even been given a better and easier working space for him with his wheel chair so even if it isn’t the most fun job he had he could at least be comfortable while doing it. Now with exams coming up she had a space to truly study, hidden away from humanity in the bunker. Salem wasn’t the best student but she did try her best. Some subjects were just to… difficult. Studying was such a chore and she didn’t have the attention span for that. She was good at geography, her favourite subject, but she liked the volcanoes and earthquakes the best, and any subject she found generally interesting were usually easier to study for such as chemistry. Salem liked explosions.   
She spent the day just relaxing and studying on the occasion she could be bothered to do it.


	24. Gluttony

Gwen was tired. Tired of not knowing what her powers were. There were three options envy, Pride or Gluttony. Personally, Gwen would like to have pride because at least then she could put some of those arrogant kids in their place. Consman Riverside had too many kids like that.   
All of Gwen’s collectables had been set up in a way that was aesthetically pleasing. She was trying to draw them in her sketchbook for an art project. It was around 5 o’clock and she could tell that her ma had almost finished the dinner from the delightful, delectable smell coming from the kitchen. Gwen could hear her stomach grumble every other second. She couldn’t help but go downstairs to await the food.  
“Hi darling,” her ma greeted her, “Dad won’t be joining us today.”  
Gwen inquired while taking her seat on the table, “Why?”  
Her da entered and answered, “I already ate.”  
“No, I want to eat as a family.” A lot of days her parents come home at 6:00pm meaning Gwen would just eat something premade the day prior.  
On rare days where her parents were able to come home earlier her mum would make something quick and sweet and then they would eat it on the sofa and watch a movie. Not today though.  
“I can’t. I have work to do and I’m already full.” Her da retorted.  
‘Well if you had the excuse of eating surely you could stay with us’ thought Gwen.  
Her dad’s stomach growled from hunger.   
“You sure about that.” Joked her ma.  
“Guess I just have a big appetite, probably my stomach realising it wants some of your delicious food.” Her da went up and hugged her mum from behind.  
The pair couldn’t their little chat as Gwen got lost deep in thought.  
‘My da has a tiny appetite and if I know him, and I do, he definitely would’ve had a large meal so why is he so bloody hungry. Gluttony exists, possibly my power. Possibly not. I’ll test it, if I get nothing I’ll just move on with my life… I guess.’  
“Hey dad.” She caught the attention of both of her parents, “weren’t you full though?”  
“I mean… yeah. I do have a lot of work to do and I’ve already ate. Goodbye family.”  
Her da’s overdramatic ass did a bow before he walked towards his bedroom to work at the desk.  
‘Well that doesn’t answer anything.’  
“C’mon darling, it’s spaghetti and meatballs.”  
“Oh nice.”  
Any thoughts of powers were pushed to the back of Gwen’s mind as she started her feast.  
The next day, Thursday, Gwen was waiting for everyone to arrive in school. She was always the first to arrive. Ally was the one who lived the closest to the school but because she had two teacher parents they could drive her to school as long as she got up at the same time as them. So she would be waiting in the small café outside the school for at most 30 minutes. Normally, Oliver would be the second one to get there having also been driven to school early because of a parent’s job. Today followed the pattern.  
“Hey Gwen.” Oliver greeted her as he entered the café as usual to see Gwen on her phone.  
“Hey Ollie.” Most days the two would just sit in silence on their phones until everyone else got there but Gwen had something she wanted to get of her chest, “So Oliver, how do you use your powers?”  
Oliver mustn’t have expected the question,  
“What do you mean? I just say some words… like cal- yeah I’m not going to say it but also other things like I just tell people to sleep.”  
“How would I see if I had a power?”  
“I don’t know I’m not a genius, I’m just in it for the ride.”  
“Ok… can I try something on you?” she asked a bit hesitantly.   
“Um ok?”   
“Tell me are you hungry at the moment?”  
“Weird question… um no not really.”  
“Ok you see all this food around us,” she paused to give Oliver time to see the pastries surrounding them, “You want to eat it now.”  
“Y’know what? I do actually feel hungry now.”  
“That’s it.?”  
“Yep.”  
Gwen pouted, disappointed that’s all she could do. Oliver tried to make her feel better,  
“Hey. Hey, I’m sure there’s more to it… maybe you could starve people.”  
“Great… murder.” Gwen gave Oliver a look of gratitude, “Well, guess I’m gluttony. Thanks for helping me. C’mon I see Ellis making his way here.”  
The two got their bags and exited the café. Gwen told Ellis of her supposed powers and he seemed to be overflowing with excitement yet also jealousy.  
“Congratulations Gwen, that leaves me and Ally to figure out our powers.”  
“Yeah good luck… I guess. C’mon let’s get to the canteen.”  
“Yeah.”  
The murderer sat in her school’s library, looking out to the chattering children below through the window. It really was a pity. All these kids could just go through life blissfully while she, someone deserving of happiness, must suffer. Still, the euphoric expressions on their faces did bring her hope, hope that maybe her life, if she actually tried, could become better despite her past… accidents. She was in the midst of a telephone call with her friend. Her friend had told her  
“Who cares what those absolute morons are feeling? Truly, they are the curse, the plague, the disease that will ruin our already disgusting planet. You did the world a favour by ridding it of a villain, surely you as a saviour towards your poor, poor mother and her mental health should be allowed to live without fear of consequence. Your actions have defined you a hero for both society and the fallen.”  
To which, while making a puzzled face, the murderer asked, “Fallen?”  
Regret hit her in the face for asking that question as her friend replied, “Yes, the fallen. The ones whose beliefs have been dragged through the dirt all because narrow-minded humans decided it was immoral even though they are hypocritical bigots and the harbinger of the apocalypse.”  
A second passed as the murderer tried to take in all that was said to her, “You worry me sometimes y’know that?”


	25. Pride

good so he’s fine with either, Gwen’s powers seem pretty useless, just making people hungry or full and possibly murder, not exactly helpful to everyday life. Still at least she knows her powers. Ellis could try again and use powers like Gwen and Oliver and Charity used words to activate it but Salem… actually she did use words at least now she can, does that mean we can do both. Surely, that means that Ellis’s would also be used by speaking so should he try again? Yeah, sure, why not? What harm would it do? So pride or envy, what powers would they have. Considering everyone else sort of controls those emotions or feelings so would pride and envy probably. So he’ll try it on one of his friends. For pride he could just try and make them feel prideful and with envy he could just try and make someone jealous.  
Soon eventually, the entire group had conversed in the school canteen and Ellis was announcing his plan,  
“So we, me and Ally, just try it on you guys.”  
“Now, like right here.” Ally asked.  
“Yeah, Ellis you did this the other day in the bunker.” Pointed out Salem.  
Ellis tried to defend himself, “Yeah but then we didn’t know the pattern of it maybe it just takes a while for the powers to appear.”  
“So why force it and just let it happen naturally.” Charity was eating some grapes as she spoke.  
Ellis scoffed, “Easy for you to say you already have your powers and besides I want to know now. The wait is killing me.”  
“Quite complaining, Ellis. It’s going to be fine. If you really want to try again today, you can.” After speaking Charity shared her grapes with the group to which only Oliver accepted.   
“OK…hang on… em… Finn you want feel jealous of em… Salem.”  
“Oh you know what I do feel something.” Finn looked at Ellis sceptically.  
“Really?!” Said Ellis excitedly.  
“No.” said Finn bluntly.   
“Seriously.”   
The conversation soon moved on after Ellis continuously trying and failing at using his powers. He spent the rest of the morning pouting until the all had to go to class. Ellis was in class 11N with Ally and the day started with double English so Ally was the only happy one in the class. English was her favourite subject. Ellis isn’t an idiot he understands most of the subjects like maths and English but he just can’t… do it. Ellis preferred biology. He liked plants what more can be said.   
Anyway, in form class before English Ellis and Ally were chatting.  
“Yeah he was the Greek god of… male genitals and fruit too plus a little bit of fertility.”  
“Why do you know that?” Ellis asked with fake concern.  
“I like mythology ok, it’s very… interesting.”  
“Ok,” Ellis looked around at everyone else talking, “we have the chemistry test today right?”  
“yeah” answered Ally.  
“How come no one’s worried.”  
“Oh I’m sure they’re just being lazy and not studying.”  
“What about you?”  
“I studied last night.”  
“Well… I need… I need to study. Oh… oh no!” Ellis rushed to get out his chemistry folder.  
“You’re an idiot Ellis.”  
“Don’t you think I know that? I’m going to fail so badly; I’ll get everything wrong!”  
“Calm down Ellis. You’re going to do fine.” Ally sighed after she spoke knowing Ellis wasn’t going to listen to her.  
“Yeah, yeah sure. I’m going to do great. I’ll do amazing.” Ellis smirked to himself already imagining his success.  
“Didn’t expect you to give in so quickly, I’m glad your finally being positive.”   
Ellis went silent as he opened his chemistry booklet. He was feeling great, like he could carry the world. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t help but get distracted and he kept looking around at everyone else in the room just chatting and having fun.  
“What are you doing?” Ally interrupted his haze, “You said you were going to study.”  
“Yeah but I’m not going to fail anyway so it’s fine.”  
“You said you didn’t study and you always freak out when you do that and study like it’s the end of the world in form. What’s going on?”  
“I don’t know. Maybe my depression has decided to leave me like everything else in my life.” He laughed at his joke and his foot tapped to the symphony in his head.  
“OK…ok, you are going to fail Ellis if you don’t study.”  
Ellis’s face screwed up in fear, “You’re right. I’m going to do terrible. Oh no I’m going to fail and then live out the rest of my life as a hermit!”  
“Chill out Ellis, what’s going on with you?”  
His face lit up, “Maybe it’s my power!”  
“Pretty shit power.” Ally said crossing her arms, “Why would your power be optimism and then pessimism.”  
“Then…” he Ally dead in the eyes, “maybe it’s your power, y’know…”  
“Pride.” Ally finished his sentence, “Ok, that makes sense so… Ellis you’re going to do amazing on this test.”  
“Yeah!” Ellis took on a contemplating look, “Well if your pride then that makes me envy. How come it didn’t work this morning.”  
“it’s probably like…you said, it just takes a while for the powers to appear and you just so happen to be the last one.”  
Ellis harrumphed and went back to his booklet to study.  
“Just give it time Ellis. Anyway, while you do that I’m going to read.”  
Ellis looked and saw she was reading The hound of Baskerville. He didn’t have the brain power in the morning to understand any form of books which wasn’t exactly helping his studying. He was most definitely going to… get full marks on this test.


	26. Meet the virtues

After school Finn had to go home before heading to the bunker. Normally, on Thursdays when he and his friends hung out Finn would go home to change out of his uniform and recharge his phone but today Finn had other plans. He wanted to bring his laptop so he could download some of the files on the control box onto it. There was so much information he could find within it.   
While he was at home waiting for his phone to charge he heard his ringtone coming from it.  
‘Hi’  
It was a text message from Briar. Almost every day this week he’d seen her.  
‘Hi’  
‘You going to bench’  
Finn wasn’t planning on it but maybe he’d be willing to go if it meant annoying her but he was hanging out with the group  
‘No’  
‘k im going so you don’t’  
‘alright’  
Well that was pretty useless.  
‘You wanna join’  
Finn hadn’t expected the question; why would she want him there?  
‘why’  
‘cause I want to hang out’  
‘why’  
‘idk’  
Finn sighed.  
‘tommorow maybe im busy today’  
‘alright’  
He turned off his phone and put on his jacket. His journey wasn’t a long one and soon he had entered the bunker to find no one else there.  
‘Ok’ he thought, ‘why is no one else here I’m definitely on time maybe everyone else is just late, I mean surely they want to be here look at this amazing bunker it has everything, it’s like a bunker for an apocalypse and I’m pretty sure that water is from the creek out there but maybe it isn’t maybe it’s just really old 70’s water that would be gross that was like 40-something years ago does water expire I’m sure if it was from the 70’s it would probably be dirty but does water expire wine doesn’t it just get better with age but does-.’  
His thoughts were interrupted by the entrance of Ellis. The group were told earlier in the day that apparently Ally had found her power of pride and therefore Ellis must’ve been envy.  
“Oh… hey Finn.”  
Ellis walked over to the sofa and plopped beside Finn.   
“Hi Ellis…”  
There was an awkward bout of silence until Finn spoke up again,  
“So… you’re Envy, what can you do?”  
“Nothing so far I only know this because of Ally.”  
“ah-okay.”  
Silence returned until the two heard someone coming down the ladder. Oliver emerged from the doorway.  
“Hey.”  
Eventually everyone arrived and the group started laughing and joking. Oliver had brought monopoly to play and soon everyone was invested in the competitive game. Finn would say it was a fun night. Most Thursdays before they had the bunker they would hang out wherever, normally at Salem or Oliver’s house but sometimes at the park or in the forest. The seven had explored it so much that most of them would be able to find their way out from any part in the forest or if you were Salem could find their way anywhere through the forest.   
By dinner time Finn was pushed to his limits with social interaction and was ready to go home. He said his goodbyes with the group as everyone dispersed and went home to eat dinner. As always his parents nagged him as to what he was doing and then he ate dinner and relaxed in bed.   
At around 7:00pm Finn got a loud alert on his phone that made him jump out of his skin. He looked at his phone and saw an urgent notification. It said someone had entered the bunker. Finn hadn’t yet put on the lock so anyone could be inside it. He hoped it was just one of his friends.  
‘Guys’ he texted them on the group chat  
‘are any of you in the bunker now’  
Everyone responded with ‘no’ only worsening Finn’s fear.  
‘why’ asked Oliver  
‘someones in the bunker I got a notification on my phone’  
‘who’ texted Charity  
‘I don’t know’  
‘what do we do then’ asked Gwen  
‘meet up at the bunker now as fast as you can’  
A series of ‘ok’s’ went through and everyone set on their way, asking their parents if they can leave. Finn tried to ask his parents only getting no as an answer.  
“Mum, c’mon I’ll be back as soon as I can.”  
“Where are you going though, I’m not letting you go AT 7PM if you don’t tell me what you’re doing.”  
“Fine, me and my friends are… are doing an emergency project… at Salem’s. It’s due tomorrow and we haven’t had enough time to finish it so we’re getting together now.” Finn could feel himself sweating.  
“Why didn’t you do it earlier?” his father chimed in trying to get him to crack.  
‘I don’t have time for this!’ thought Finn.  
“We did, you know how I’ve been going out with them more… well that was for that and we tried and thought we could finish it earlier but we didn’t” He was trying hard not to stutter as he spoke.  
“Then why didn’t you look worried earlier or why didn’t you tell us earlier?”  
“Because… I didn’t know. One of my friends noticed that we forgot to do something that was required and now we have to hurry to finish it.” Finn could only hope his parents believed him.  
“Ok,” Finn let out a sigh of relief, “but no iPad for a week.”   
His parents didn’t try to hide their smug looks and Finn really didn’t want to give in but this was important.  
“Fine, just let me go now.”  
“Okay but bring your phone and we will call you every thirty minutes or so,”  
“Ok thank you.” He walked towards the coat rack and put on his big coat.  
It wasn’t that cold at the moment since it was late Easter but the nights could get a bit chilly. Finn walked out after saying goodbye to his parents and the moment he knew he was out of their sight he ran like the wind as fast as he could to get to the bunker. When he got there everyone else was there.  
“What took you so long?” asked Salem frustrated from waiting so long.  
“Parents.” Nothing more was needed to be said as the seven sins stood at the bunker hatch knowing someone else was in there.  
“So… what do we do?” asked Salem.  
Oliver stepped to open the hatch, “We go in and we deal with this person.”  
“But it’s not even our bunker, ok, it could be anyone like a police man or… or…” Salem was cut off by Gwen  
“Then we say we’re a couple of teenagers in the woods who found this open and wanted to explore.” Despite Gwen’s calm manor everyone could see she was shaking.  
“Alright,” Finn quietly opened the hatch, “Let’s go!”  
The group climbed down slowly, one by one, with Finn in front. He faltered as they reached the closed door and heard shuffling beyond it. Finn took a deep breath and gently opened the door. As they entered the group saw a girl, about 15 years old like the most of them, ravaging the cupboards of its crisps. She had shoulder length, straight, ginger hair with a fringe that was covered by a white and indigo coloured beret and berry blue eyes. She had pale fucking skin, enough to make it hard to see a difference between her shirt and her skin. Her tank top was white and her knee length skirt was light blue. She wore buckled, dark blue boots with grey fur at the top. Her hands were covered by white, silk gloves. At the sight of the group coming in she yelped announcing to the other people something was wrong as they ran through the halls.  
“Who are you!” said Salem trying to give of a domineering tone.  
When the mysterious people froze, it gave the sins a chance to truly see every intruder. There were seven of them, including the food thief from before. The one that was beside the ginger girl, Finn could see was Kiara Rose. She had her light brown hair up in two side ponytails with light blue baubles holding them up. She was wearing a black choker and a dark blue shirt dress with grey tights that were mostly covered by her knee high, dark blue boots. The bastard from school, Finn had to hold in his scoff. The next one was a guy Finn was pretty sure went to his school just not in his class. He had short, black hair with a long, spiky fringe and dark green glasses over what Finn thought was dark brown eyes. His skin was a dark, deep brown. He wore a grey turtle neck and blue ripped skinny jeans. Overall Finn was not impressed. After that he saw the guy, Ash, from his class. He was wearing a red jacket over a grey shirt and dark trainers. Finn knew Ash from his old school and although he wasn’t exactly a ‘troublemaker’ it wasn’t that surprising he was found here. Up next was a girl Finn didn’t recognise however she did look familiar. She had long, curly black hair tied back in a loose ponytail with a messy fringe at the front and dark green eyes with long lashes. Her skin was a natural tanned colour. She wore a purple peplum shirt and black leggings. Her ears held purple studs and around her neck was a black collar necklace. Beside her Finn could see Briar Fox. Her dark brown hair was up in pigtails and white sunglasses sat upon her head. She wore a black princess coat over a light grey shirt and black jeans. Finn froze for a second not exactly knowing why. His eyes widened as he moved on and saw the boy he had unfriended at the age of 13. Justin was standing there staring at him with his short, messy blonde hair that defied gravity with it’d fluffiness. His light brown eyes were covered by black glasses and his ears were pierced with black, jewel studs. His skin was a tan that Finn knew for a fact was not natural and probably from going outside all the time, something Finn would never understand why people did. He wore a light grey top and black shorts with a dark green hoodie wrapped around his waist. Finn had hoped he would never see him again but I guess the fates had other ideas.  
“So… hi, I’m May.” The ginger haired girl spoke up and waved with a smile that looked like a kid pretending they liked the person they were talking to, “So I’m assuming you’re not just some random teenagers exploring, hm.”  
No one said anything leaving everyone in uncomfortable silence and looking around at everything. Everyone snapped their heads at a crunch side coming from the kitchen. May, it seems, had opened a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and started eating.  
She cleaned up her mouth and decided something had to be done,  
“Ok, so we are the virtues.”  
All May got was a bunch of confused and suspicious looks from the sins.  
“Y’know like you’re the sins and we’re the ones from the other bunker unless… you’re just a bunch of teenagers who stumbled upon this place.” A look of regret spread across her face but soon settled as Salem stated   
“No, we’re the sins, don’t worry… it’s just… what are you doing here?”  
Finn had so many more questions going through his head but you have to start somewhere right?  
“Oh,” May perked up, “we were looking for the other boxes and we noticed on our tv that this bunker was up and running, y’know lights on and such so we decided to check it out and found the coordinates and yeah… here we are.”  
Finn didn’t know what to think. First off, they weren’t the only ones who had gotten powers so that’s… fun, secondly Justin kept glaring at him distracting him from the action every so often, then Briar was one of those people so yea and now he had just remembered why that black haired girl was familiar. She went to his old school.  
“So… who’s who?” Salem continued asking the questions.  
“Well as you know I’m May, and I’m prudence.” She announced, her smile reaching her ears.  
“Prudence?” for the first time this night, Ellis spoke.  
“Yes! It’s basically knowing the difference between good and bad.”  
Finn had no idea what the virtues could possibly be. He hadn’t even known they existed before finding this bunker and he didn’t know what to expect from their powers. From what he knew of everyone in the virtues there were at least two bastards a part of it. Justin and Kiara. His own powers were, in his opinion, pretty powerful and cool but if they also had powers like that… Finn didn’t want to think that they would be bad enough to hurt them but at the same time he didn’t trust anyone in the group of virtues.  
“Yeah, anyway this,” she pointed toward Kiara, “is Kiara.”  
“We know.” Charity gritted through her teeth and glared at Kiara who only looked away, her face saying what Finn would say was ashamed.   
“Ok well… she’s hope.”  
Finn could see Charity’s face distort with anger after hearing the virtue.  
“So it was your power- it was the reason I got so- I lost all hope when you talked to use! You- you-.”  
“I’m sorry, Charity I truly am. I realise now my actions were stupid and for no real reason. I’m sorry.” Kiara interrupted her and shocked the entirety of the sins.   
‘What the fuck!’ thought Finn.  
Realisation washed over Salem’s face, “Charity don’t be too mad. I’ll talk with you later.”  
“Well…” May put her hands on her hips, looking back and forth between the sins and Kiara, “That’s… yeah okay, anyway, this is Mel. He’s courage despite the fact he’s a fucking wimp.” May laughed at her own joke.  
Finn could hear the guy who was beside Kiara, Mel, sigh as if this was normal shit for him. Finn saw Salem wave at him. He gave her a questioning look to which she just whispered ‘in my class’.  
“Then this is Ash, Charity.”  
“What?” Charity asked confused.  
‘Was that a virtue?’ thought Finn.  
“Huh?” May also seemed confused.  
“Her name’s Charity, listen charity’s also a virtue so… I’m charity.” Ash stepped forward to explain things.  
“…right… anyway,” May still had that foul smile on her face, “that’s Ebony, Temperance” She pointed to the black haired, green eyed girl.  
“Right, ok… that is?”  
“Self-control. Ok, this is Briar she’s faith.”  
Finn looked at her and returned the smile she gave him.  
“And last but not least Justin.” May did a fancy hand gesture towards Justin who looked very unamused, “he’s justice.”  
Silence returned leaving everyone standing in the bunker lounge awkwardly.  
‘Well… bloody hell.’   
Everyone heard a buzzing sound all of a sudden, confusing them limitlessly even causing Gwen to jump back dramatically. Finn could feel the vibrating in his black hoodie’s pocket.  
‘Fuck! My parents!’  
He took out his phone and announced,  
“I need to take this.”  
He closed the door on his way out back up towards the forest.   
“Hey mum.” He answered his phone wanting to get this over and down with.   
“Hi Finny, so how are you?”  
“I’m fine mum is that all you want.”  
“Wow, so pushy. I just want to check up on you. Where are you little friends?”  
“They’re… working on the project in Salem’s living room.”  
“And you are?”  
“I’m just outside her house. Y’know I left to take this call.”  
“Ok Finn but can we talk with one of your friends.”   
“Why?” Finn asked a bit wary.  
“Just want to talk.”  
“Ok.”  
He put his phone in his pocket hoping it would muffle the sound at least a little bit.  
‘Ok… I’ll get Salem I know they trust her but if I take too long to tell her the lie my parents will get suspicious-Uh, just move Finn.’  
The door opened and everyone silenced and turned their heads to see Finn coming back. He looked around and gestured for Salem to come.  
“What?”  
“My parents want to talk; tell them we’re doing extra work for a project.”  
He rushed the phone from his pocket into Salem’s hand.   
“Right, ok… hello Mrs O’Kelly… yes we’re just here working… where?”  
Salem looked towards Finn for direction. All he did was point at Salem and whisper your house hoping his parents couldn’t hear him.  
“Yo- my house… yeah, not quite done yet… about an hour… ok bye.” Salem sighed as she ended the call and handed Finn his phone back.  
“So…” May turned to Finn, clapping her hands together, “Your parents sound wonderful.”  
“Yeah, ok, what are we doing now?” asked Finn looking around at everyone.  
“Just introducing us-ourselves, that’s Finn, lust.” Salem answered while moving to close the door Finn left open in his rush to give Salem his phone.  
May clapped her hands again, “Well then… how about you help us look for the other catalyst chest.”   
The sins all gave May a look that said ‘are you serious’ and yet her smile didn’t falter.   
“Why do you want to find the other chest?” questioned Oliver.  
“Well… what if someone else, who didn’t know what it was, found it and the apocalypse seals are supposed to set off the apocalypse if certain things happen and we don’t want that to happen.” May explained throwing her now empty crisp in the bright orange bin beside the kitchen island.   
“Ok but do you even know where it is?” Continued Oliver.  
Finn looked at the rest of the sins wanting to see their opinion on finding the chests. Personally, he thought it wasn’t something he would want to do especially with exams coming soon. Salem looked to be considering it and Charity had a face full of worry, one Finn could completely understand. These strangers they don’t know… well that’s not completely true, Finn knew Briar, Justin, Ash and Kiara plus he was pretty sure Salem knew Mel and he saw Ally giving that Ebony girl the stink eye… still he knew for a fact Justin and Kiara weren’t trust worthy so who’s to say whether or not this’ll go well. Ellis just looked excited, probably because it’s more like a fucking superhero movie now. Gwen looked like she was having some inner conflict with herself, not exactly knowing the right option or maybe she just really likes making dramatic facial expressions. Oliver looked like he was searching for a hidden motive, dude chill we’re just teenagers none of us are gonna’ be insane murderers. Ally was hiding behind Gwen considering she is really short, at least compared to Finn who was the tallest in the group, and she kept giving side glances to everyone in the room clearly uncomfortable with the amount of people here.   
“It’s where the bunker is… we assume but the S.O.C.A could’ve been wrong.”  
“How do you know about that?” inquired Finn earning a bad look from Justin.  
‘Jesus Christ, Justin just get over it already. I’m sure our friendship didn’t mean as much to you as it did to me.’ Thought Finn barely looking over at his ex-best friend.   
“We saw the introduction video plus we have a bunker too. The Jekyll bunker, y’know.” May looked at Finn like it was the most obvious thing in the world which, to be honest, Finn kind of realised it was now, “anyway what do ya say, hmm gonna’ help us?”  
“Give us time to think it over.” Demanded Salem as she ushered the sins towards the planning room.  
“What do we do then? Just wait here for you to come up with an answer?”   
“Yes!” Salem quickly shut the planning room door and walked over to the planning table, “Ok what do we say? I think we shouldn’t, at least not until after the exams, during summer.”  
“I agree.” Said Gwen followed by Ally,   
“same they don’t seem trustworthy.”  
“Yeah, Kiara for sure would never apologise.” Gwen looked contemplative.  
“Actually that’s not true, I kind of used my powers on her to make her nicer to Charity.” Said Salem guilt prevalent in her tone.  
“Oh.” Gwen   
“Plus, that Ebony chick is the bastard I bumped into on that bitch of a morning I had.”  
“Well then i-.” Salem was interrupted by Finn.  
“Justin’s not a good person either, Briar I think’s alright.”  
“You know this how?” questioned Oliver.  
“Knew Justin from my old school plus I know Briar… somewhat.”  
“Alright well, the virtues are full of untrustworthy people so… are we saying yes or no to helping them?” Salem took charge.   
Everyone but Ellis replied no to which everyone just stared at him.   
“Why, Ellis?”  
“Well…I don’t… fine let’s not help them.”  
“Ok then… let’s go.”  
The sins walked out back into the lounge and announced their answer.  
“Well… that’s unfortunate.” May’s smile twisted into a forced grin, her eyes darkened and stance became defensive, “I hope you won’t interrupt us on our journey.”  
“no… certainly not.” Salem looked May up and down as she spoke, “Now then are you planning on leaving.”  
May’s took a deep breath in and she made her way to the bunker door, “of course, come one guys let’s leave these sins to themselves. Ciao, I hope to see you again tomorrow.”  
Everyone else in the room, including the rest of the virtues, were baffled by May’s forwardness.  
“Hang on,” began Salem, “What exactly do you mean?”  
May still held up that smile as she spoke despite everyone looking at her like she’s an idiot, “We’ll be coming back. Isn’t that right gang?”  
She looked over to the virtues but Finn could see her looking specifically at Justin who answered for the others,   
“Sure.” The first time any of the other virtues spoke this night.   
May continued, “then it’s settled we’re coming back here tomorrow,” she saw the sins grim faces, “just to explore and get to know you better jeez take a chill pill. Now let’s leave it’s almost 8 o’clock and I need to get a good night’s sleep for school tomorrow.”  
She went through the door and started climbing up the ladder, not caring if the person under her were to see under her skirt. Soon, she was followed by the rest of the virtues leaving the sins standing in their bunker frozen. Salem spoke,  
“Well… shit.”   
Later that night, a murderer sat in bed thinking of the day’s events. The police weren’t any closer to the real culprit and her mind was buzzing with anxiety. If she were to describe the feeling she would say it felt like a constant rollercoaster but not one of emotions, those had stayed perfectly still between anxiety and regret, it was one of circumstances. One day the police were straight on her tail and her friend was the only one to comfort her but the next they are miles behind her and her friend is nowhere to be seen. Although, that same friend was currently sitting in her room conversing with her,  
“Don’t worry about it. My dad’s a detective, he’ll trust me if I say you’re my friend, to which you are. Think of it like a games of chess, every move you take could lead to your demise but also your salvation. Today, new pawns have arrived. I’m the queen obviously but you’re the rook. What I’m trying to say here is we’re powerful. We are in a position where we a capable of getting anything we want. You want to take things from a store, you can do so. If I wanted to… attack someone, I could. We control the board and therefore we control the players. So why fret? Just live your life, you have succeeded in your revenge and your forgiveness so, please, for the sake of all that is foul and all that is righteous move on. What’s done is done. You can’t change your past, your fate and maybe, if you keep up your disheartened attitude, your fate. If I were you I would accept my clearly deserved happiness. Don’t you think you deserve happiness?”  
The murderer looked at her with a solemn face, “Yeah…I do.”  
“Well then, shoot your shot, live your life, don’t let your emotions control you.”


	27. Justin

He was not expecting that at all. If anything, he wasn’t wary like the rest of the sins, he was excited. Life was boring before, Ellis would wake up, go to school, come home, do his homework, eat then go to sleep and on weekends it was basically the same but instead of school it was farm work or hanging out with his family. He wasn’t saying he was depressed, he had fun for the most part but he did have the occasional thought of ‘is this really it? Is this all we get in life?’ Now, however, he’s experiencing new things every day and eventually he’s going to get his powers and then life’ll never be boring again… to an extent of course, exams will still be boring.   
Today was Friday, the last day of school for this week. Yay! Another week over and done with. The virtues would be coming back to the bunker so that’s fun. The prior night, when the sins dispersed, Salem said they all had to meet back up in the bunker tomorrow and then they all went home shocked. That was fine with Ellis, his parents are ok with him hanging out with friends since he was so anti-social at his first school. The virtues seemed like alright people. Kiara for sure wasn’t the best person, Ebony apparently was a bit mean on Ally’s… crappy morning but she might just not be a morning person and then Finn said Justin was bad but he looked to be an alright guy. May… she looked a bit crazy but at the same time she didn’t do anything to hurt them so… who knows?  
As always school was not fun, Ellis’s favourite day was Tuesday since biology was that day but today was not Tuesday. The best part of the school day was either lunch or home time in Ellis’s opinion. However, the best part of the day overall was going to the bunker at the end of school at 3:25. The sins had gone on their way towards the bunker, still wearing their school uniforms, and by 4:00 they were walking through the lounge doors. Only Briar and Ash were in the lounge on the tv, Ellis assumed the rest of them were elsewhere exploring the bunker to which they were.   
“Hi guys!” May said excitedly, a smile covering her face, “sorry for not waiting for you to come in to the bunker but we just wanted to see everything you have. There are so many different interesting books here, y’know we also have a planning room but ours was way more full of stuff I guess our worker’s in the Jekyll bunker just worked harder than yours HA… anyway anyone care to explain what the fuck this is.” She held up a dead mouse, right in her bare hands. Ellis looked away in disgust and saw Salem jump back form either fear or surprise, probably a bit of both.   
“That’s…” started Salem, “a dead mouse.”  
May snarled, “I can see that but why is there a dead mouse in your bin.”   
“Why’re you searching the bin?” Finn asked raising an eyebrow.  
“Doesn’t matter, why’s it there?”  
“There was a mouse and we killed it what’s the problem?” Gwen spoke for Salem.  
“No problem.” She looked towards Salem, “You scared of it or something because you jumped so badly, you scared of a little… dead mouse.” Her mocking tone didn’t fail to annoy every single one of the sins.  
Salem turned away from the annoying girl in front of her, “NO and it doesn’t matter. Now, where’s everybody else?”  
“Oh, well Ashton and Guitar girl are there and then-.”  
“What?” questioned Gwen.  
“Oh… that’s just what I call them… anyway they’re over there and then the others are… elsewhere in the bunker just around. I’m going back to the planning room if you wanna’ join, you join.” And with that may walked away.  
Salem looked back at the rest of the sins and then back towards where May once stood, “I’m going to talk to her.” And then she walked to the planning room.

The group was silent for a while until all at once each of them started moving either hoping to get to know the virtues or to just have something to do instead of standing awkwardly. Ellis made his way towards the library deciding the most interesting, or at least the one he would find most interesting, virtue would be there. As he entered. He saw a boy with blonde hair in the middle if the second and third book stack looking through a book. With a second glance he saw it was that Justin kid.   
“Hi” Ellis walked over to him.  
“Hi… Eric?”  
“No, it’s Ellis. You’re Justin right?”  
“Yeah… so….”  
Justin went silent and eventually, when Ellis didn’t speak up, just went back to reading. Ellis had no idea where to go from here. Normally, in his friend group, other people would start talking and then he would just tag along for the ride and just add some comments unless he loved the topic of conversation, then he would take control. He knew nothing about Justin and nothing about if he would be interested in talking about his powers but it’s worth a shot.  
“So…Justin, you’re what again?”  
“Hm?”  
“What’s your virtue?”  
“Justice.”  
“So…what can you do?”  
“Stuff.”  
‘alright then, a man of few words.’ Thought Ellis, ‘maybe I should rephrase my question.’  
“What-.”  
“What about you?” Justin spoke before Ellis could get out his question.  
“Well…I don’t know yet. I’m envy but I haven’t gotten my powers yet.”  
“That’s a bit lame.”   
“Yeah.”  
The silence returned making Ellis squirm where he was standing.  
He asked Justin, “What exactly can you do… like not just stuff?”  
“Why do you want to know so much?” Justin raised his eyebrow.   
Ellis blushed, “…oh…oh…I just want…”  
“There’s no need to get so flustered, I can control what people feel is justifiable so if someone thought hurting someone was alright I could make them feel like it’s a bad thing.”  
“Ok, that’s cool… I feel like I would be able to make people envious obviously and…I don’t know what else.”  
“Well, that sucks for you doesn’t it. Anyway, I wanna’ know how’s Finn these days?”  
Ellis had to stop himself from flinching in surprise, not having expected the question.  
“He’s good. He’s-he’s…yeah…good.”  
“Is he dating anyone?”  
“I don’t…no, he isn’t at least I don’t think so. Why?”  
“Just wanted to know and besides I’m dating May now so it’s fine.”  
“Huh?”  
“What about the rest of your little gang, are you guys all good friends? Do you all hang out here doing… things?”  
“Yeah,” Ellis didn’t like the tone of voice Justin had taken. It seemed almost like he was mocking him yet, at the same time, annoyed, “Do you and… Is yours and the virtues bunker similar to ours?”  
“Yeah, pretty much, it’s about the same except the colours are different like there’s purple and blue instead of green and orange and obviously different books and such inside and there’s… never mind.”  
Justin’s voice had returned back to the monotone one he was greeted with. He put back the book he was reading and Ellis could see it was an Irish folktales book.   
“Right, what about…” Ellis was struggling to think of any way to engage in this conversation.  
Justin was not that fun to talk to.   
‘And what exactly,’ Ellis wondered ‘did he have against Finn, jeez.’  
“So…” Elis tried again, “how’d you find the box?”  
Ellis could swear he saw Justin flinch for a second before answering,  
“Well… it’s at the opposite end of town, y’know near Shrewsbury street, yeah round there is the bunker. It’s… the way in is through this old abandoned house that no one goes in on the side of the road at the beginning of the motor way and it’s at, the entrance, the very end so you’d have to go through the whole house to get to it and me and my friends were just feeling very adventurous that day so we walked in and-.” Ellis was nodding along to his story, “we heard this loud bang coming from elsewhere in the house and… we ran towards it and it was just an empty room. May saw this old, dusty red box in the room beyond it and being May she just had to investigate and then… yeah we opened it and smoke came out, knocked us out for a second, then the bunker opened via this old rusty door. It looks like it’s a book case, it’s really cool y’know like those hidden passageways villains have and it opened to a ladder downwards so we climbed and then found the bunker.”  
Once Justin finished, Ellis just stood there for a second taking in the information.   
“So… I thought that house was a really old, abandoned opium den.”


	28. Mel

Ally was walking through the halls with Gwen. She didn’t want to meet these new people without someone to fall back on when it gets awkward and it definitely will get awkward. The pair walked into the security room hoping to find someone to which they did. There in two of the five comfy looking, swivel chairs sat Mel and Kiara.   
“Hey guys…” Kiara mumbled after noticing them, stopping her conversation with Mel, “listen I’m sorry for making fun of Charity, I didn’t know you guys were the sins and besides I only did it because… because I wanted her spot on the hockey team and I don’t care anymore.”  
“If you don’t care anymore why’d you use your powers on Charity?” asked Gwen standing in front of Ally.  
“Well… I just wanted to know if I could cause people to lose hope and… I didn’t want to use it on my friends so… and Charity was just there when I really wanted to do it so…”  
A second of quiet went by until Mel added,  
“Hi, we haven’t met before but I’m Melvin Sharp but please call me Mel. So your Gwen and Ally yeah?” he received a nod I response, “Well we were wondering, Kiara if you would care to ask?”  
She sighed, “well we were wondering about your powers what can you do?”  
“We could ask the same about you OH WAIT we don’t have to because we know because you used them on Charity!” Gwen raised her voice.  
“Oh don’t be such a sissy.” Gwen looked at her with an incredulous look to which Kiara just giggled softly, “sorry, sorry I didn’t mean to offend you.” She looked for Gwen’s reaction, “you obviously have a right to be upset.”  
Ally didn’t know if Gwen could see it but she definitely felt like Kiara was barely getting the words out of her mouth.  
Gwen calmed down, “Fine…we will have a respectable conversation with no arguing.” She cleared her throat and waited for someone else to speak.  
When no one spoke Ally took it upon herself to fill the silence, “So Mel, you asked or rather Kiara asked what our powers are? Well I’m pride, she’s gluttony and we basically just control those feelings like I could make someone prideful now tell me…who are you again?”  
“Oh…well I’m courage and yeah…Kiara’s hope, as you know, and I can… basically just like you control courage it’s a pretty basic power.”  
“Pretty cool is what it is.” Chimed Kiara.  
Gwen frowned at Kiara, “Yeah it’s cool but you don’t have to use it AGAINST PEOPLE!”  
“Jeez, when are you gonna’ stop holding that against me I said I was sorry and I already told you I didn’t know you were the sins then.”  
Ally could see Kiara was starting to lose her patience.  
“Not having powers doesn’t mean they don’t deserve human decency.” Gwen pouted at Kiara making her just stick out her tongue in response.  
“Ok stop being childish.” Mel put his head in hands and Ally could only guess how he even deals with Kiara or why he’s even friends with her.  
“I’m not being childish. She’s the one who’s being childish,” fumed Gwen, “I’m the one who’s friend was bullied by this bitch.”  
“Wow okay.” Kiara went silent and eventually she turned back towards the screens that held the security recording, “so… this place is… cool. I mean, obviously our bunker’s better but a cool, secret bunker is a cool, secret bunker.”  
“Yeah.” Was all Gwen said in reply.  
‘Well… this is going swimmingly’


	29. May

Salem went after May. The idea of her getting the apocalypse box wasn’t exactly frightening but it did leave a bad taste in her mouth. What was she going to do with it afterwards? Like she said May was in the planning room along with Ebony, just standing there looking at the planning table that held a map with three different pins where the bunkers are.  
“So we doing this or what?” Ebony was sitting in a plastic, bright orange chair beside the table.  
“Maybe,” May’s face seemed solemn as she spoke, “It is a risk but we could… Salem, hi, didn’t see you there.” She smiled at her looking away from the map on the table.  
“Yeah hi… what were you talking about there?” Salem saw an empty lunch box on the table.  
“Oh what? Well… we were thinking how we were going to get into the third bunker, the Halloran bunker. It’s in the middle of your school, I don’t know exactly what the door inside of it could be. Do you- have you seen any weird thing that could be the bunker entrance?”  
“No when we found the bunker we just opened the box and then this hatchet appeared, there aren’t any boxes of the sort in school.”  
“We opened a box too and then it was in this bookcase, you pull down the fairy tales book and then it opens. It’s in this abandoned house.” May’s excitement skyrocketed when talking about the bunker she loved so much.  
“You mean that whore house at the side of the motorway.” Salem deadpanned.  
“WHAT! NO! Of course not! It’s nothing of the sort and that’s beside the point! The point is we don’t know how to get at it. Our bunker despite its awesomeness doesn’t have the Halloran bunker’s coordinates pinned so this is the first time we’re seeing it’s exact location. We’ll have to get Kiara, Ash or Mel to look for it if you sins won’t help us but me and Briar are the only ones that know exactly what the box looks like so we would have to be there. I mean we could break in at night and to be fair it is just a fancy box.”  
“May, you can’t just break into a school without proper preparations.” Ebony joined in on May’s tangents.  
Salem just watched the two as they talked about different possibilities of where the box could be or what they could do. In all honesty she found it hilarious. They were taking the matter so seriously, talking about breaking and entering when all it really is, is a box that is inside of a really unguarded, weak, uncaring school. She should know, she goes there. No one would care if they broke in at night to take a box in fact, no one would care if they walked into the school in midday and said they knew someone inside and were going to see them. It’s happened before, someone from a neighbouring school doing a dare or something, Salem didn’t exactly know, but they just walked in, said they knew someone to anyone who questioned them and then walked right out. They didn’t do anything but it still freaked Salem out. Anyone could just get in, anyone like the virtues. Although, the teachers, after that incident, have been warier lately and talk has been going around that students were getting conformation cards for the staff to look at when a student is walking through an empty hall.  
“Hey,” She caught May and Ebony’s attention, “the sins aren’t going to help you get the box, that’s for sure, but we can help you identify it…only during school hours though we’re not going out of our way to help especially if it means going to school even when we don’t have to be there.”  
She could see May light up in delight and Ebony just giving her a satisfied smirk.  
May beamed, “That would be wonderful help Salem and we don’t expect you to do anything else. Of course, you do know what the box looks like, right?”  
“Yeah, I do. It’s a little dark blue wooden box with… gold things on the side.”  
“Really? Not for us, ours was red with silver.” Ebony stopped swinging on the chair she had been sitting on allowing Salem to relax after being scared she might fall and crack her skull open. Every teacher seems to have the same story of some kids falling backwards, cracking open their skull and ending up in hospital.  
“Well then I guess you should look out for a box that could be any colour as long as it’s wooden and also don’t open it because that’s basically a death wish.” May acknowledged.  
Salem swore May had to be smiling ironically by now. No human does or should smile that much, it’s just a weird thing to constantly look at. May continued,   
“So Salem, I’m glad you could help me… A DOLL!”  
“What?” asked Salem genuinely confused.  
“That’s what you remind me of, I had this doll when I was a kid, it had light brown hair and brown skin like you and that’s what you look like HA, that’s wonderful, isn’t it… Dolly?”  
“Huh?” Salem still had no idea what was going on.  
“This is what she does when she’s found out what she’s gonna’ call you so… congratulations you’ve got a nickname.” Ebony deadpanned.  
“What?” She now fully understood what was going on but the information took a little time to full set.  
“So, Dolly, happy you could help us.”  
“Right.”  
‘Creepy fucker.’


	30. Ash

Charity went to talk to Ash with Oliver. Not really because she wanted answers or because she wanted to get to know him better, no not at all, it was all because she just wanted to relax on the comfy lounge sofa.   
“So… Charity how’re you?” Ash was trying to start a conversation Charity really didn’t want to be a part of.  
“I’m fine.”   
“Ok… What about you Oliver?”  
“I’m alright.”  
“Great…” he went quiet and looked back at the movie playing on tv, “so… you guys are what… greed and sloth so… what’s that like?”  
“Don’t know all that well considering we’ve only had it for about a week.” Oliver remarked.  
“Right… it’s fun being charity I’ve used my powers to… help… people.”  
“Help people?” Charity looked across to him from the screen.  
“Yeah I made a couple people lucky and do well in y’know the physics test so… yeah that’s all I’ve really done but I haven’t had the chance to really do anything with them.”  
“Same, actually I almost hurt someone but that’s about it.” Oliver stated.  
“Huh? Hurt someone? When’d this happen?” asked Charity genuinely concerned.  
“Just at the resort climbing wall, was helping this kid climb and he freaked out and I told him to him to calm down and he did so by falling asleep, he came down slowly but still could’ve whacked his head so…”  
“Resort?” questioned Ash.  
“Oh yeah my parents own a resort so…”  
“Interesting… what’s this-that like, y’know the resort… by resort what do you mean? like a place for people to stay with all sorts of things at it like a pool or- yeah like a hotel but for rich people.”  
“…I mean, yeah sort of… it’s alright, it’s pretty cool having my own place to climb or to swim in the- y’know Ash I’ve been wondering since yesterday.” Oliver looked towards Charity and back and Ash.  
“Yeah.” Ash turned down the tv.  
“So you’re the virtues, yeah, and we were wondering what exactly can you do?”  
“Oh well I can do luck things- like with the physics test. I made them luckier and obviously their Charity, I control like whether or not they’re a good person.”  
“Cool.”  
A silence fell over the trio causing Oliver to grab the remote and turn up the tv. Charity thought,   
‘Well that could’ve gone better.’


	31. Briar

Finn was talking with Briar beside Charity on the lounge sofa.  
“So… you’re a virtue, that’s nice.” Finn spoke.  
“Yeah and you’re a sin, that’s great.” Briar added.  
“… so faith, what can you do?”  
“Well I can control faith and trust and stuff.”  
“Cool… I can control love… I guess,”  
“That’s nice.” Briar looked to the ground, “So what should we talk about?”  
“Let’s talk about… upcoming exams.”  
“Ok what exams are you least excited for?”  
“Well, all of them… but especially art… fuck art.”  
Briar laughed, “Art’s good though, at least I enjoy it. I believe I’m alright at it and- what I’m really-what I don’t want to do is geography. It’s so boring and my teacher is a dick. I don’t know If she hates everyone or if it’s just me like she always just asks question-like she doesn’t teach she goes around the class and asks questions hoping we’ll get the answer about something we haven’t learned yet and-and-…”  
“I have a couple teachers like that they’re all awful but not lots only like only two or three… what’s your favourite subject?”  
“Eh, Spanish. I like languages, I have good memory.”  
“I like… I.T. but in the more main subjects I like maths.”  
“Yeah- maths is alright and I.T…. I.T.’s fun, I enjoy it. Do you enjoy P.E. ‘cause loads of my friends except Kiara or Justin, I guess, hate P.E., I don’t think it’s too bad-I mean it’s not fun but it’s not boring y’know.”  
“Yeah, I don’t like P.E. Exercise isn’t fun. What school do you go to?”  
“Eh, Oakland.”  
Finn took out his phone, “that’s about 20 minutes away from my school we should… we should meet up after school or something- y’know at the threshold of the golden bench.”  
“Threshold of the golden bench?” smirked Briar.  
“That’s just- that’s what I call it, you don’t- you don’t…”  
“It’s cool.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, I’m gonna’ call it that from now on.”  
“Great, wonderful… so do you want to meet up? We could hang out and maybe… walk in the park?”  
“Yea sure why not?”  
“Alright, I already have your number so we’ll arrange it later.”  
“Sure that’ll be good.”  
“Yep.”


	32. Doggos playin' in a field

Everyone collected together in the planning room.   
“So, the box is in-somewhere in Consman Riverside and you guys need to go find it, the sins will help you as far as they are willing to go which they’ll probably just stop when you actually get the box so anyway… any ideas?” May started, sitting in the chair at the head of the table.  
Kiara spoke, “We could just walk around and look for it at lunch but some places we’re not allowed to go to and some of the most common places I’ve been in loads of times so I’m pretty sure there’s no box there so we’ll have to look elsewhere.”  
Salem stated, “We’ll as long as we don’t get in trouble because I, for one, don’t want to get detention especially this close to exams.”  
All sins agreed leaving May with only one choice.  
“Alright, at any time you can stop helping us. Obviously the four of us,” May gestured towards Justin, Ebony, Briar and herself, “can’t help you so I expect you to try hard.”  
“What do we do when we find it?” asked Mel.  
“Em… tell me and then we can possibly break into the school at night to find the bunker. That’s not a definite but we need to find out where the box is first.”  
“Alright then, that’s a plan.” Salem wrapped up the night’s shenanigans.  
And so they all went home to sleep and anticipated the following days of school but first things first, they all had to get through the weekend. Today was Saturday.  
Charity had nothing to do today since she only had about one or two homework’s and she could do them tomorrow. So here she was just lying on the sofa on her living room. Her parents were elsewhere and her dogs were outside with Audrey. Charity’s phone was charging after dying earlier and the tv had no good shows on to watch.  
‘Might as well go hang out with the dogs.’ She thought.  
Her house wasn’t too big, about an average middle-class family home. Where the house stood out is its back yard. It was, at least in Charity’s opinion, huge. On the left was a big shed leaving the rest to be just a big field of green grass. There, sitting on a lounge chair, was Audrey watching the two huskies run around.   
“Hello there.” Audrey greeted her, not taking her eyes of the dogs.  
“Hi.” Charity took a seat on the swinging ball chair they had, “So… the dogs fine?”  
“Yep. Just fine.”  
“Cool…” The two sat in silence watching the huskies until Charity spoke up again, “So how’s school going? I’m sure being… you, you’re doing awfully academically but what about sports?”  
Audrey snorted, “You’re one to talk seeing as the only thing you’ve got going for you is hockey.”  
“And technology and design.” Charity pointed out.  
Audrey agreed, “And technology and design. Besides I’m doing great not only is the hockey team in MY school being the best team in the county but I’ve also got above average in every subject that matters.”  
“Oh yeah? And what subjects would that be?”  
“Maths, English, the sciences and I’ve got amazing scores for Spanish and French.”  
“I still don’t understand why you chose to do those two, they’re too similar that’s why I chose German and Spanish.”  
“Well it’s easier then because the words are similar so then I can remember it easier.”  
“That doesn’t make any sense.”  
“Uh-uh, well then why’d you pick German.”  
“I enjoy the subject and I’m doing quite well at it so…”  
“Oh yeah, I thought you picked it because you had to have at least two of the three languages and you just picked the ones you had the best marks in.”  
“Well… no I only did that for Spanish but I actually enjoy German.”  
Audrey laughed, “Yeah right. What about exams? You studying yet?”  
“No, I haven’t started. I’ve been… busy with my friends doing things.”  
“Yeah, lazing about when you should be studying.”  
“No! Not at all. I mean… yes basically but besides exams are a month away so we have time.”  
“We? I’ve already started studying… a little bit but I guess you’re right. We have a little less than a month.”  
Mallie, one of the huskies, started barking for her ball to be thrown.  
Audrey sighed and went to pick it up and throw it. She sat back down on her lounge chair, “I’m sure the dogs miss you since you’ve been keeping hanging out with your friends a lot lately. What’s that about? You used to just do that on Thursdays or birthdays.”  
“Oh… we just found some other friends and we’ve been introducing ourselves so…”  
“Well that’s nice…what are they like?”  
“Nice. Don’t know them too well yet so.”  
“They go to your school?”  
“Some of them, yeah.”  
“How’d you meet them?”  
“Oh… we were in the forest and then they were also there… so we talked and now we’re friends so…”  
“Right…” the two went quiet, “My friends have been very busy lately since y’know Anna’s been moving, Haley’s been studying and Orla likes to be alone a lot. I’ve only been hanging out with them during school so-at least it gives me time to study.”  
Charity frowned and noticed that Audrey looked a bit lonely,  
“Well… we can hang out, I know we’ve never really hung out before but we’re the same age and we both like hockey so… and a lot of times I’m just here alone at the house so… might as well talk.”  
“Ok! Ok, sure, we can practice since you definitely need practice and I could do with some.”  
“Yeah. C’mon we can walk to the park,” Charity looked at the dogs, “after our parents are home so they can look after the dogs.”


	33. Box hunt

Oliver spent most of the weekend with his sister and for a while watching Charity play hockey with her sister. Today was Monday. Oliver was going to help the virtues look for the box in their school. He had some ideas about where it could be, possibly in Mrs Hudson’s classroom since she had loads of boxes on the side but he was pretty sure they held things and she opened them often so probably not. Gwen was waiting, as always, in the café.   
“Hey.” Oliver greeted the sitting girl.  
“Hi.” Gwen turned off her phone.  
“So where do you think the box is going to be?”  
“We might not even find it Ollie, I mean, what if it’s not even in the school?”  
“Well the planning board says it is.”  
“Yeah well, the planning board was made by the S.O.C.A. and that one, was a long time ago, our school is only 75 years old do you really think the building has stayed the same and two, they might’ve been wrong so…”  
“Yeah, I guess you’re right but if it was in the school where could it be?”  
“Well… I don’t- maybe the art room. Miss McFerrin’s room, I mean. There is a lot in the storage room and we both know Miss McFerrin has absolutely no clue what goes on in there seeing as she can’t even find her own paints in there and she never goes in.”  
“That would be a good place for it… what about outside the school?”  
“Like in the hockey and rugby fields?”  
“No, in the bike shed possibly or in one of the bushes?”  
“Well we’ll have to try it obviously when none of the other kids are around.”  
“Yeah when it’s empty, so the kids don’t follow us.”  
“Yeah… what would they be when the bunker would’ve been teleported here?”  
“Teleported?”  
“Well yeah, our bunker teleported under the ground by some…thing and I’m sure the others did considering the virtue’s one is in a whore house.”  
“It’s not a whore hou- you know what? Never mind, please continue.”  
“Anyway, what would the places have been when the school was older like the bike shed obviously wouldn’t exist and Miss McFerrin’s storage room definitely would’ve existed but I don’t- maybe there’s a hidden door or something in there.”  
“We’ll have to ask the teachers about the school’s history.”  
“Yeah,” Gwen looked out the window, “OH, there’s Ellis.”

As always everyone joined the group outside by the gates. The virtues were nowhere to be seen, either in class or inside the school elsewhere. Oliver, although he was thrilled to search the school, was not as excited as Salem. She shook from happiness as she ranted about how she would turn the school upset down with her exploration. Finn looked extremely tired but then again he always looks tired. Charity, like usual, looked great, her smile lit up the room. Ellis looked to be in deep thought and all things considered it makes sense. What exactly are these powers? Gwen looked annoyed probably because some boys were kicking tennis balls all around the group. Ally was rushing to get inside so she could sit down and read. Eventually, everyone collected into their respective classrooms.   
Oliver was all alone in his class, 11M, the only one who he hung out with was Beth. Her hair was a light blonde that shone in the sun and looked silky smooth. Her skin was a beautiful, beaming, blooming beige. Her ebony eyes sparkled while she talked. The only reason Oliver talked to her was because he sat beside her and there was nobody else in the class that he knew, Beth went to his primary school, however Kiara was in his class but he would never hang out with her in a million years. Registration was very boring, at least in Oliver’s opinion. Beth had other friends and they only really talked on days when they had to sit in seating arrangements. Those were normally the days Mr Hudson came to overlook the children. Today was one of those days. The days he arrived were irregular, usually Monday’s were an alright day and although they didn’t have P.E., his favourite subject, it did have physics so… anyway at least Oliver had someone to talk to.   
“Hi, Beth.”  
“Hello Ollie.”  
“So… how are you?”  
“I’m doing well. You?”  
“I’m fine. You do the German homework?”  
“yes, I feel I’ll do marvellously. It’s rather funny seeing as… I absolutely fucking suck at German.”  
“You’re not that bad, at least your better than me.”  
“Yeah maybe so, heh. Did you know in the library, the librarian found a weird box in there? Some ass apparently put the miss’s phone in there but they glued it shut, or at least that’s their thoughts. The bastard box wouldn’t open. The principal was terribly upset, as well as the librarian, since it was her phone. They’ve become devoted to finding the perpetrator, they may mention it, probably mention it, during the assembly tomorrow.”  
“They’ll probably keep us late too.”  
“It’s such a bore.”  
‘That could be the box! We can’t let them open it.’, Oliver thought looking at Beth tap on the desk.  
“How in the hell did this guy get Miss Palmer’s phone and why the fuck did they do it?” questioned Oliver confused.  
Beth shook her head, “No bloody clue, the miss’s is searching the classes for the perpetrator.”   
“Really? How do you know this?”  
“My mate in 11O spoke to me and said the principal came and questioned the pupils about it and, I’m sure, they’ll visit us too.”  
“Oh, well we’ll just have to see.”  
Later, after the first two periods, during break, Oliver met up with his friends for 20 minutes. He explained to them the library situation.  
“So we find this box and see if it is just glued shut with a phone in it.” Concluded Salem.  
“Should we tell the virtues?” asked Ally.  
“Nah, why should we? We’ll just do it at lunch.” Finn continued.  
“Actually the library’s closed today, probably because of this.” Said Gwen.  
“Then… we can sneak in. Nobody will care.” Responded Salem  
“Right, ok, what if it isn’t the box? Or we get caught?” questioned Finn worried.  
“It’ll be fine; the school doesn’t care.” Salem said.  
“Yeah, they don’t. So they might just blame us for the box if it’s real, they aren’t above it and let’s be honest, Miss Palmer’s phone went missing it has to be real.” Remarked Gwen.  
‘Well, that was a bust!’  
“Then what do we do?” inquired Salem.  
“Wait. Maybe go outside and look during lunch. Something no one will find suspicious.” Answered Charity.  
“Right then, we’ll go look outside.” Salem said exasperated.  
“Wait,” Gwen spoke, “Oliver earlier we said about Miss McFerrin’s storage room.”  
Oliver acknowledged, “Yeah but only art students can go in there.”  
“Well, I’m an art student and I know I could bring two people in with me to help me look for supplies since it’s so cluttered.”  
“Well then, who are you taking?”  
Gwen looked at the others and her eyes landed on Ally,  
“Ally can come and Charity since she’s a tech student and they do enough drawings for Miss McFerrin to consider them allowed to use the storage room.”  
Charity scrunched her nose, “Yeah but they’re more technical drawings not artistic.”  
“Still, you’re coming with.”  
“Well then,” Salem started, “lunch time, you three search the storage room and we’ll tell the virtues what’s happening.”  
“Wait no! We don’t know them and what if it’s a false alarm. There’s no point wasting their time.” Argued Finn.  
“Fine, Finn. We’ll do that.” Muttered Salem.  
Before any more words could be spoken a loud bell rang throughout the school.  
“Well guys,” Salem continued, “see you at lunch.”


	34. Halloran bunker

Charity felt like a third wheel. Her, Gwen and Ally were walking towards the storage room. Gwen and Ally were walking in front, chatting the world away. With nothing to do or no one to talk to Charity just hung behind stalking quietly. Miss McFerrin’s room was on the opposite side of the school to the canteen which is where the group met up. It wasn’t that long of a walk but even a couple seconds of awkwardness is enough to make a girl shrivel and die inside. The sound of her feet clattering against the floor echoed throughout the hallway. She listened in on Gwen talking,  
“I’m just saying, maybe not in actuality but spiritually, circles are red.”  
And so Charity stopped listening to that conversation. There was no doubt they would be let into the storage room but actually finding the box would be a challenge. The room was full of water colours, paints, pencils, pens, canvases and whatever else Charity wasn’t even sure of. The box wouldn’t be in the open seeing as it wouldn’t have been opened… maybe… it could be opened. Who knows what would happen once it’s open, if it even is open. Chances are it isn’t. Now, she didn’t know a lot about the bunker’s but, unlike the Wilkinson and Jekyll bunkers, the light labelled Halloran bunker on the side of the planning table wasn’t lit up. So she assumed that meant it wasn’t active. Finally, they arrived outside the room. They knocked on the door and were answered by Miss McFerrin,  
“What do you want girls?”  
“Well,” Gwen started, “We wanted to know if we could get into the storage room. I need some of your supplies.”  
“I’m actually leaving now, if I’m going to let you in there I hope I can trust you to not mess around.” Said Miss McFerrin sternly.  
“Yes, miss.” They all said in unison.  
She continued, “Alright girls I’ll be back in 20 minutes. I know you’re a nice girl Gwen but if I come back to find my room a mess you will be given lunch time detention.”  
The girls were soon left alone as the Miss’s walked away.   
“Ok,” chimed Gwen, “let’s do this.”  
The three gals strolled into the room and started their search. Ally looked through the painting utensils, Gwen checked between the watercolours and Charity explored the recycled materials. Minutes passed until Charity squealed,  
“There’s something here!”  
Everyone rushed towards her. They all saw a locked, dusty, hidden doorway just about big enough for a teenager to pass through. It looked like it hadn’t been unveiled in years. The white, ancient wallpaper covered the door. It reminded Charity of the door from Coraline. Her only hope was that it wasn’t a portal to another- fucking- world.   
“Should we open it?” asked Charity.  
Gwen stared at it unblinking, “Well, what do you think it is?”  
“Possibly something to do with the box.”  
“Then I guess we open it.” Concluded Gwen.  
“Alright.” Said Charity as she sauntered over to the door.  
‘How in hell am I going to open this?’  
The multitude of art supplies surrounding them gave her an idea. She checked the shelves and found what she was looking for, a hobby knife.  
‘Maybe this could cut the wallpaper.’  
She leaned down and put the knife to the wall. The sharp knife slashed through the weak paper.  
‘Success!’  
She pulled the door roughly and it slammed into the wall. The three of them crawled through, Charity going first. Beyond the door was a small room with nothing inside but a stand in the middle. On the stand was a dusted, wooden, antique bronze box, the words ‘seals of the apocalypse’ etched into the side.   
“Well then. I guess that’s that. Do we tell everyone?” asked Charity.  
“No, we need to find the bunker!” demanded Gwen.  
“Yeah but won’t we have to open the box to do that?” wondered Ally.  
“No, not necessarily… I think… we could just pick up the box and bring it back to the rest. Obviously, we can’t let the virtues find out yet.”  
“Why not? I mean, they haven’t actually done anything too bad.” Ally argued.  
“Well Kiara’s a piece of shit. May just acts like a bit of a prat. Ash I don’t know very well so who am I to judge him. Mel seems nice enough but anyone who associates with Kiara’s a piece of shit who belongs under my shoe. Justin, Finn said he was bad so I’ll trust him. Ebony looks like a git. And Briar… I don’t really have anything against her, she seems fine. So tell me Ally, why should we have to tell them?”  
“Because we don’t actually give a shit about this box.”  
“Well I just don’t want the virtues to have the box and we didn’t even want to look for the box in the first place but, again, the virtues shouldn’t have it. They’re sketchy.”  
“Fine that’s fair.” Ally gave in, sighing.  
Gwen stepped over to the box and picked it up. The second she did the white, wooden stand the box was upon started moving downwards. It revealed a square shaped hole in the floor leading to a small corridor, big enough to crawl through, underground the school.   
“Uh, why all the crawling?” complained Gwen, “Someone else go first please I don’t like… small places.” She shivered.  
“I’ll go.” Volunteered Charity, “If you don’t want to Gwen.”  
“Thanks Charity. Is it ok if I just stay here? Or I wait until you’ve found something and then I can come in when I’m ABSOLUTELY sure it’s safe.”  
Charity nodded and started her descent through the dark tunnel leaving Ally and Gwen to talk out their next moves. The darkness washed over her like a tricky wave, drowning her in fear. Seconds became minutes as she crawled through yet she made it safely to the other side. She appeared inside and saw a ladder leading even further down.  
‘Well… at least I’m fit enough to do all this.’  
After her climb she found a dusty room with nothing but a big, burly, guarded door.   
‘Really! Why can’t it just be as easy as our bunker!’  
Charity walked towards the door and pulled, it creaked with stubbornness.   
‘Damn it! Fucker! Fucking Bitch!’ she took a deep breath out, ‘Ok, it’s fine. Think. What do I do?’  
Her gaze followed the dust particles flying around the room.  
“Fuck! This is boring!”  
“Authorisation! Required!”   
Charity jumped out of her skin,  
“Who are you?”  
“Authorisation! Required! If password is forgotten answer security question!”  
“Oh. OH! Ok…em- security questions please!”  
“The Society of Cataclysmic anomalies was founded in what year?”  
‘Oh fucking Hell! When did the diary say like 195-something… 1960? NO, 1950…1950-1953! YEAH!’  
“1953!”  
“Incorrect!”  
‘What the fuck! UH- fucking- that was when the Wilkinson bunker became active- UH… they never said when!’  
“Uh- can I have another question?”  
“Name of the Society of Cataclysmic anomalies director is?”  
‘Oh! That one’s easier! it should, hopefully, be the same as the one we learned. He’s called…he’s called… Fuck! Wait, we didn’t get his name! UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-I’ll skip.’  
“Another please!”  
“The Society of Cataclysmic anomalies founder was named?”  
‘Oh. Well I definitely don’t know this.’  
“Anoth- wait. Halloran! Halloran! I know this!”  
“Entry granted!”  
“Woohoo!”  
Charity celebrated with little jump around the room her face lighting up despite the room’s darkness.  
‘Yes! Yes! Yes! I did it! I Fucking Did It! That was way Harder than it needed to be! Yay!’   
She took a second and caught back her breath. Her journey continued with her entrance to the Halloran Bunker. Aqua fairy lights lit up the room as she entered. Her amazement was limitless at the sight of the bunker. It was different to the Wilkinson bunker yet still had the same homey feeling. Charity felt all warm and snug inside. The place consisted of the same lounge room and kitchen but the colours were different, less in your face and bright, more calm and relaxing. There was a rusted gold covering the kitchen counters and sofa. A dark, deep, cold blue washed over the walls and an ebony wood made up the coffee table. The place was clean and well-kept, completely diverging her expectations. A stack of magazines sat upon the coffee table beside a small, fake plant in a mellow pot. Charity stood in awe, frozen in place. A control box and tv, the same as the Wilkinson bunker, were in the same spot, in front of the coffee table.  
‘Wow. Ok… this place is great… I should probably go get Gwen and Ally- but I could just explore this on my own- but I also have lunch to get back to… fine! We’ll come back later after lunch. Goodbye beautiful bunker.’  
And this is when her journey ended.


	35. Gwen

While Charity was busy exploring, Gwen and Ally were left alone in the supply room.   
‘Ok. What conversation starters do I have? Uh why is talking to your crush so hard!’  
“So…” started Gwen, “Ally, have you watched… have you played persona 5?”  
“No.” stated Ally bluntly.  
“Oh, well… what do you think you’ll get on the French test?”  
“I’ll probably do awful but I did actually study for this test, for once, and I knew most of it.”  
“I think I did well but it was way too hard for just a recollection test like what do these teachers expect, that we have infinite amount of free time”  
“Yeah, like I know I have things to do when I go home and studying is one of the most boring things in the world and then there’s homework from ALL of our teachers.”  
“School is stupid or at least Consman Riverside is. What do you think we could get away with before the teachers actually start caring?”  
“Ohhhhh probably-we could probably sneak in here at night and mess around and break stuff and the only thing they would do to find out who did it would be ask us then everyone would be given detention or something.”  
“Yeah but that’s bullshit we shouldn’t get a group punishment because of what one person did. Still, that guy glued the principal’s phone into a box like I don’t know if you can get any worse than that.”  
“Oh, no, you definitely can. Remember when Philip swore at the teacher and then threw a book at him. That was mad.”  
“Oh yeah absolutely, I could never do anything like that. And he got expelled if I got expelled my parents would go mental.”  
“Mine would be pissed ever since… yeah if I did anything even remotely similar to that- who even knows what would happen.”  
“Yeah… you doing alright? Like with your parents.”  
“Oh… yeah I’m fine.”  
“Well if you ever need help I’m there.” Gwen was screaming inside her head.  
“Yeah… thanks Gwen.”


	36. Envy

In the canteen, while the girls were away, Salem, Oliver and Ellis were just chatting, having fun. Ellis was being quite quiet which was strangely unsettling. Salem watched as Oscar Harrison, someone she could safely say was the stupidest person in her class, loudly complained about his bad test scores.   
‘You’d think he’d know by now that he has the lowest IQ of all time.’ Salem sighed.  
“Do you guys think they’ll find something?” Ellis asked flicking at crumbs on the lunch table.  
OLiver swung on his chair as he talked, “Hopefully, so then I can focus on exams.”  
“Yeah…” Ellis looked around until his gaze landed on the screaming Oscar Harrison, “When will he shut up. If he wants to shout he should go outside.”   
“HEY!” Salem called to Oscar.  
“What! Salem! No!”  
Salem ignored Ellis’s comments, “Oscar! If you want to shout go outside!”  
“Right on, Salem!” he shouted back.  
Salem turned to Ellis, “Oscar’s an idiot, Ellis. He doesn’t care.”  
“Ok, but you didn’t have to do that.” Ellis put away his lunchbox as he spoke.  
“Oi, Salem!” Ellis couldn’t help but scoff at Oscar as he walked over to the bunch, “What’d you get on the test?”  
“Uh 83%”  
“UHHHHHH you got way better than meeeeeee.”  
“What did you get?”  
“Fucking- 20%”  
Ellis leaned forward into the conversation, “Why do you even want her scores? You could’ve done better if you tried.”  
Oscar replied, “Yeah… you’re right. Her scores are awful! I don’t need them.”  
“Yea-wow- okay okay that’s rude. I did WAY better than you, who are you to say that.” Salem jumped back offended.  
“Yeah well if I, someone who did shit, think your score’s bad. It’s bad.” Oscar retorted.  
“Yeah but that’s like just admitting that you did terribly.”  
“Yeah but that doesn’t you didn’t as well.”  
“I got 25 out of 30!”  
“And I got 6 out of 30 and yet I’m beating you in this argument. I’m just not that good at French.”  
“YOU aren’t winning this argument UH stop being so bloody ignorant- fucking- just stop. Just stop being so stupid.”  
“Impossible.”  
“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Ellis looked over to Oscar, “You leave. Now.”   
He then looked back towards Salem as Oscar trudged back to his table, “What the heck was that?”  
“What! He started it.” Huffed Salem.  
“No, no, no, not that, he just agreed with me and he, for sure, would never do that. OH do you think it’s my power? Envy?”  
“Ellis not everything is to do with your powers. Earlier you said ‘what if Daniel being upset with me getting better scores than him in English is my power.’ Ellis that’s not how it works.”  
“Y-yeah but… but- I actually spoke words, I said ‘why do you care about her scores.’ And then Oscar started bad mouthing your mark.”  
“Well then,” Oliver chimed in, “By that logic, it must be your power. C’mon, try it on… Salem.”  
“What! Why me?”  
“Because… because- y’know what just because.”  
“Fine. C’mon Ellis, use it on me.”  
Ellis hesitated, “What do I say?”  
“I don’t know! It’s your power.”  
“Ok…ok em- you want my good biology marks… so… how you feeling?”  
Salem looked around the canteen and replied completely uninterested, “Uh yeah, I think your marks are good.”  
“C’MON Salem. Is that it?”  
“Yes.”  
“Oh… maybe I just need to practice more.”  
“Maybe,” she sighed, “hey Ellis don’t worry. We don’t know anything about these powers so who knows? You’re probably right. You just need to get used to it or maybe you just need to get more emotional, how about this, sometime soon we’ll test our powers like the limit or when they’re their strongest, yeah?”  
“Yeah, thanks.”  
“Now then- I’m going to buy muffins are you coming?”


	37. Built in 1963

Finn was busy talking with his favourite teacher, Mr Sullivan, his history teacher. Although his favourite subject was I.T., history was a close second and when you have a good teacher even subjects you hate can be made enjoyable, they can’t make you care for the subject but they can make you that little bit happier. He was asking Mr Sullivan about the school’s past. Although the time rightfully gave him an excuse to ask this, he had always been interested in the past of the school. It’s such a weird thing. Walking places on the daily and finding out those places hold stories of millennia, stories about people who had their own lives. It always gave Finn chills.  
Anyway, Finn was talking with the teacher,  
“So the rugby fields once had a pool?”  
“Yes,” Mr Sullivan said, “Back in the war when they didn’t want the water reflecting any light for the Germans to see they filled it in.”  
“When was the school made?”  
“Well the building was built in 1936 but it only became a school around 1980.”  
“What was it when it wasn’t a school?”  
“Well, the government owned the building completely and used it as a factory we can only assume.”  
“Assume?”  
“Well, we don’t know for sure everything that went down here but for sure things were created here such as bullets.”  
“Oh… what about Miss McFerrin’s room? What was that?”  
“I don’t know. Like I said we don’t know everything for sure but considering how fragile the walls are they wouldn’t have used it for loud, factory work.”  
“So… it could be anything?”  
“Yes.”  
“Anything like… a government hide out?”  
“Yes but why do you ask?”  
“Just…wanted to know.”  
“Yes but why?”  
“I was interested. The school’s past is quite fascinating.”  
“Yes, it is. Did you know my room was actually an infirmary?”  
“OoOoOhHhH, really?” he faked interest, wanting to move on with the conversation, “What else?”  
“Well…”


	38. Guns

After school, Charity explained the situation with the bunker and soon the sins had gathered outside the art room. You can stay in the school for up to three hours until the cleaners will force you out. Gwen had say Miss McFerrin leave in her yellow mini earlier so they could sneak into her room without a hitch… or so they thought.  
“UHHHHH- why didn’t we expect her to lock her room.” Complained Finn, “Can any of you pick locks?”  
“-I can… sort of but not well.” Spoke up Oliver.  
“Why in the hell do you know that?” Finn raised an eyebrow.  
“Well, I just wanted to know.”  
Charity beamed, “That’s pretty cool Oliver.”  
Oliver blushed, “t-thanks Charity.”  
“Anyway,” deadpanned Salem looking between the two, “Open the door Ollie.”  
“I can’t.”  
“Why the fuck not?” asked Finn passively.  
“I don’t have one of those thingys.”  
“Thingys?” Ellis wondered.  
“Yeah, y’know like what people use in movies. A hair pin type thing.”  
“Oh have one.” Gwen took out a hair pin from her blazer pocket.  
“Thanks.” Oliver straddled towards the door and took a couple minutes to unlock it however, eventually, he got in.  
The group was led by Charity into the Halloran bunker, through the deep tunnel and the annoying questionnaire. The bronze box was set aside in the bunker as everyone gawked at the subtle differences this room held compared to their bunker. Like before everyone went to explore. Salem and Ellis stepped towards what was the planning room in their base. Oliver went with Charity to explore the kitchen and then the living room. Finn searched the control box seeing if the same code that worked on their box would work on that one. Ally and Gwen searched the other rooms but specifically the library.   
“Holy shit! This place is great!” Gwen screamed from what would have been the bedrooms.  
“How so?! Shouted back Salem from the planning room.  
“Come and look! I’m in the second room on the left!”  
“The bedrooms?!” joined in Ellis.  
“Not exactly! C’mon!”  
Everyone gathered, confused as to why Gwen was so excited. In the room there were no uncomfy beds, no, there were stacks of military weapons. Guns, ammunition, grenades even flamethrowers. Instruction sheets   
“What the fuck!?” Finn exclaimed, “Why- What-I know it makes sense since this was here during the war but still did they just leave all this here?”  
“Well, the director did look in a rush to shut down the S.O.C.A or at least the catalyst chests part of it.” Pointed out Charity.  
“What do we do with these?” Ellis shivered with fear as he spoke, “Should we call the police?”  
“We-we should just… leave them alone. For now, at least.” Stammered Ally.  
“WHAT! We have to tell the police now! Guns are ILLEGAL! I know the police will find the bunkers but we can’t just LEAVE THIS HERE!” Ellis insisted.  
Salem stood in front of the freaked out boy, “ELLIS! Chill! It’s going to be fine. The police will just complicate the situation even more and I’m sure we’d get in trouble some in some way or another so chill. For now, I think we should just leave it here and keep this to ourselves. We’ll cover up the door in the storage room and we’ll only come here when necessary.”  
“This room isn’t the only thing.” Everyone turned to look at Oliver with surprise as her spoke, “the bathrooms aren’t actually bathrooms like in the Wilkinson bunker. It’s a make-shift hospital with cabinets filled with out-dated drugs and documents of old patients.”  
Charity gulped, “there’s a rusty ladder in the closet. I saw it searching through the soldier uniforms.”  
‘Jesus Christ! This bunker just keeps giving!’  
“Ok then, let’s explore.” Salem strode past the rest and straight into the closet.  
Immediately her gaze landed upon a seemingly hidden ladder leading up to who knows where. With no hesitation, she latched onto the ladder started her climb. Her journey brought her to confined, dark room with a door in front of her. She pushed it open and was unveiled to the school’s playground. The door was carved into a tree, hidden from clear sight. The handle was disguised as a small branch and the rest of the door blended into the rest if the tree. The only way the door could be recognised is if you were looking at it directly.   
“Well…this is nice. We don’t have to sneak into miss McFerrin’s room.” Salem sighed.  
Everyone appeared beside Salem and stood lost in thought.  
‘We’ll have to cover up the door in the art storage room.’  
“Guys,” Salem caught everyone’s attention, “How do we cover up the little door thingy.”  
“We get card paper and we glue it on. It’s the best we can do on such short notice since we don’t want her to find it. We should go as fast as we can.” Finn remarked.   
“Well then.” Continued Salem, “let’s get back to the bunker.”  
“Ma’am, we need you to tell us.” the detective, Mitchell Green, was back at the murderer’s house.  
Her mother wouldn’t tell him where her father had gone before he disappeared. Of course, the murderer knew exactly where he had gone, she knew he went there every-Fucking- Thursday night. It definitely made it easier for her to confront him, it’s just… things went too far. Her mother knew, for sure, what happened to him each night.  
“Well, if you’re a detective you should be able to do your detective stuff and figure it out.”  
“Ma’am please, we understand your boyfriend was very dear to you and he is still missing. We-.”  
“DEAR! He was a BASTARD! Do you wanna’ know where he went?! He went to the-FUCKING- strip club! He slept with other women!”  
The detective flinched backwards as her mother screamed in his face, “Thank you ma’am. We understand this is difficult but we still need to do our job, are you alright answering the rest of my questions.”  
“Yes-.”  
She didn’t want to hear anymore and rushed up her stairs, straight to her bedroom. Her bedroom wasn’t the nicest. It had cracks in its light blue walls and the windows would barely open. There was a lingering smell of rotten fruit and a constant buzzing noise. No matter what, it was still her home. She plopped onto her springy bed and huffed.  
‘Those fucking losers think they can just barge in here and- and question my mother about something that is clearly upsetting her! What an inconsiderate asshole maybe- maybe I should stop. He’s just doing his job. And I can’t talk when I literally murdered someone.’   
Her friend had stopped her from calling it murder. She said to call it taking the law into her own hands or doing the polices job when they won’t… except her dad. Her dad does his job well.   
‘I can’t let this get to me. You’re going to be fine. Just focus on your studies. Exams are soon so I should probably stop worrying about this. They haven’t found out yet. I can focus on other things for now. If I need to deal with- with… the ordeal then my friends will help me, surely.’  
The murderer could feel her heart beating faster, she needed to call her friends- someone, she needed to know they would be there to help her if it all went to shit. Her phone fit perfectly in her hand as she called her black- haired, green- eyed friend.  
“Hey, hey, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me when- if the police find me, you will be there for me!”  
Her friend responded, “Chill! Chill. Yes, I will be there for you. You shouldn’t have murdered him but what’s done is done and so I will help you deal. Keep your mind of off it, do something you love. Maybe you could just do some hockey or if you don’t want to you can put yourself to use and help me designing this dress for my art project.”  
“Alright.” The murderer sighed glad things haven’t changed.


	39. "Find the box!"

After school Finn had planned to meet up with Briar at the Threshold of the Golden bench. He wasn’t going to tell her about finding the box or the bunker but that doesn’t mean he can’t talk with her about it. The others had no idea that he was friends with- well not really friends but they do have each other’s numbers and they are hanging out so… who knows? Maybe they’ll get closer in due time. He did really want to get to know her better, she seemed like a cool person. The school looked so baron and bare with nobody there, it gave Finn chills. It only took about 25 minutes for Finn to walk from the school to his house and 35 minutes to get to the Threshold. Listening to music is the only way Finn cannot die of boredom on his way there and hence, when he got there, he didn’t notice the ginger girl sitting beside Briar.  
May boomed, “Hello!”  
Finn jumped out of his skin, “What the fuck! May! What-what are you doing here?” he looked towards Briar for the answer.  
May cut in, “Because I can be. C’mon Finny, it’s fine, I asked to be here. It won’t be any different than you and guitar girl hanging out by yourselves.” She deadpanned.   
Finn looked back towards Briar who only shook her head in annoyance. She mouthed sorry to which all Finn could do was sigh and say,  
“Ok, ok I’ll just sit here then.”  
He started towards the bench beside Briar however, May interjected, “No, no, actually I’m sitting there…” she looked at Briar’s exasperated expression, “…or… Finny can sit there I’ll sit on the dirty, muddy, disgusting, wet, awful grass. You two have fun sitting cleanly.”  
Finn fumed, “don’t call me that!”  
“Awe, is Finny upset that I found out what his parents call him.” May laughed.  
Finn’s face got all red and he lost eye contact with May as Briar giggled,   
“Really? That’s what your parents call you? Oh that must SUCK.”  
May joined in, “Truly a travesty, and yet, despite your obvious annoyance, they still call you that. Ha!”  
Briar joked, “I understand, my parents called me Bri-Bri and I assure you it was a nightmare anytime my friends would come round and make fun of me for it.”  
Finn chuckled, “That’s even worse than Finny, your parents sound so pretentious.”  
“Yeah, one time, when I was about 5 or 6, I was having a sleepover for my birthday and, I shit you not, any time they talked to my friends they would just act like they were kids, I swear to god, they said things like ‘so what do you think about… Justin Bieber?’ we could only weasel our way out by answering with short answers.”  
“Jeez, that sounds awful, my parents haven’t done anything remotely close to that. However, there was this one time we were all out like me, my mum, my dad, my brother and my sister and they just forgot me at the toy isle in Tesco’s. I was about 6 and they kept saying when they came back that ‘they were only going to another isle in the Tesco’s’ and that ‘I had walked off without them’ which, to be honest, is probably the truth. I was the densest child out there, no sense of safety. In the end though they bought me some extra chocolate to make up for it and we went out to the cinema so that was fun.”  
May stood watching with an unreadable expression, “oh wow,” she said sarcastically, “your parents sound so bad. I can’t imagine a life with such horrible care givers. Truly the bane of our short, meaningless existence, the fact that your parents tried to care for you whether or not they failed, they still tried.”   
“Hey May,” Briar quaked, “You good?”  
May laughed it off, “Yep but… can we talk about something else.”  
“Ok”  
‘Oh Jesus. She clearly has problems she needs to deal with.’  
Finn spoke up, “That’s fine… we can talk about… what do you like to watch?”   
“Oh, well, I like… OH, I meant to ask you guys if you’ve found the catalyst chest?”  
Oh,” Finn was not expecting the question, “No, we haven’t found the box yet.”  
May pouted, “I think you’re lying.”   
Finn jumped back, surprised, “what?!”  
“Ha, no, it’s fine. Why would you lie?” she winked at the boy, “There is NO reason whatsoever for you to lie.”  
“Well, we haven’t found the box.” Said Finn.  
“That’s a pity, have you been looking for it?”  
“Of course, we’ve looked everywhere.”  
“Well, clearly, you haven’t since you still don’t have the box.”  
“Maybe you virtues should be looking harder and it will be found.” Finn knew he was pushing it a little but he just wanted to get of this subject.  
“Fine, fine, how about, Briar,” May turned her attention to the sitting virtue, “we all break into their school tonight and then we look for it ourselves.”  
Finn didn’t look May in the eyes as he leaned back.  
Briar spoke, “WHAT? BUT- but I-I don’t think- I don’t think we should be doing- doing that.”  
“HA! Chill Briar. We won’t do that it’s a stupid idea. I hope you’ll find the box soon obviously Ash, Kiara and Mel have been looking for it but have had no luck and with your bigger numbers I assume you have a better chance. Telling me when you find the box should be your number one priority.” May stared at Finn.  
“Well, we’re busy with exams so…” Finn pretended to get a notification on his phone that was in his hand, “Oh I have to go, now… I’ll text you later Briar. Bye guys.”  
“Ok then, bye Finn. I’m glad to have had some time to catch up with you about the box.”  
‘Jesus Christ, lady! It’s not all about that stupid, fucking box!’  
“Right.”  
He trudged out of the ring of trees and all the way home. His phone made got a real notification and he looked upon it to see it was a text from Briar,  
‘Hey sorry about may she forced me to bring her’  
He typed back,   
‘its fine. Why was she so adamant on getting the box?’  
‘don’t know. She really wants it. She says she wnts to do something tonight that’ll help I think shes going to break into your school’  
‘i wont stop her since I don’t care but I want to make sure if any possible way you cant let her use the box’  
‘she wouldn’t open it’  
‘Wouldn’t she?’  
‘I don’t know but I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything too rash’  
Finn turned off his phone when he got to his front door. Sighing, he   
put his hands into his hoodie.   
‘What have I gotten myself into?’


End file.
